Unbroken

I listened to the young adult audio version of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This true story follows Louis Zamperini and his rise from a troubled youth, to an olympic athlete, and finally to a prisoner of war held by the Japanese. The title Unbroken is fitting because after everything he endured he went on to live a relatively normal life. The story was eventually made into a movie, but I have not seen the movie and can't comment on how it compares to the book.

This is an important story to read. There are sometimes ordinary people asked to do extraordinary things. While Louis Zamperini was not necessarily asked to do anything he experienced, he did volunteer. He gave up his Olympic career to serve his country. And then to endure a plane crash and days on a raft only to land in Japan and endure even more is rather extraordinary.

Since I listened to the young adult version of the story, I can't say what I missed. An Amazon reviewer says the language was simplified a bit and there is some abridgement to the story. I felt the changes were relatively minor because I didn't feel I was missing anything. In some parts of the story, I wondered if content had been edited because the torture of the POW's was rather graphic. Still, how does one edit it without losing the seriousness of the situation? After listening to the book, I tracked down the print version to see the pictures.

Laura Hillenbrand did an excellent job in writing this book. For more about Louis Zamperini, I found he wrote his own story.

Book rating: 5 stars

The books I select for review are books which I personally select from my local library. I do not receive any reimbursement from authors or publishers or free books. I do provide links to Amazon as a convenience to the readers of this blog. I do earn a small referral pittance which is not even enough to buy a soda.