When a book receives more than 1000 five star reviews on Amazon, you know that it has to be good. What is even more impressive is that it has racked up this many positive reviews in only 5 months since it's been published. Often times, when you have very high expectations of a book, you feel a little let down when you actually read it. However in this case, I have to admit that Louie Zamperini, whose story Laura has told so well, will simply exceed anything you expect from any human being.
Louie is one of those super athletes who went on to join the military during the second world war and ultimately spends a good chunk of time in several Japanese POW camps. The atrocities he faced in the POW camps are described in gory detail and they are certainly not for the squeamish. I am a huge fan of Japanese culture, having visited Japan often and love their food and culture. I still interact a lot with Japanese folks in a business setting and have very close Japanese colleagues. After reading this book, I find it really hard to imagine how this very polite culture could give birth to individuals that could carry out some of these atrocities. I guess the lesson to be learned is that a bunch of human beings, regardless of their caste, creed or religion, can be driven to do things that are outside the realm of human civilization. More often than not, this happens when these individuals are isolated and cut off from information from the outside world and in many cases fed propaganda and mis-information. This seems to be the case with the commanders and guards of the Japanese POW camps as well.
You will need a strong stomach to get through some of the middle section of the book as it goes through the gory details of how Louie and his fellow POWs were treated in the camps. Despite all this, the book is a must read and it will teach you a lesson or two on how trivial your troubles are in comparison to the many different challenges that Louie had to overcome.
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