Review | Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Synopsis from Goodreads: On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared. A young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, struggled to a life raft and pulled himself aboard. 

The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini.  In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails.  As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile.  But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, capture by the Japanese and a struggle to survive prison camp.  Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion.  His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. 

This was such a fantastic and inspiring read. It was very interesting for me to learn more about what happened in the Pacific during WWII. All of the other WWII books I’ve read have been set in Europe. One of the things I liked the most about the story was being able to watch Zamperini’s transformation throughout the book, especially as he recovered from the atrocities he experienced in the prison camps in Japan.

I loved this book and found it to be a quick read, despite it being nearly 500 pages. Laura Hillenbrand is a great author, she also wrote Seabiscuit which I loved as well.

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