The story, the characters, the setting, social, political and racial issues of the day, are all well presented, unfortunately I just didn't get to the point were I cared very much. The madness, the frustration, exhaustion, action, irony and honesty came through like how only someone who has been there can describe and stay honest. This book works at many levels I just felt it fell a little short of really getting to me. It is not the great Vietnam novel, it's a good one.

The central character of this book is someone you would probably never have heard of unless for some obsure reason you were researching pre WWII athletic statistics. But for what happened to this man as what happened to many thousands he may have become a household name.
Events in this character's life make you stop, perhaps do some interspection of your own fortitude and at least wonder how anyone could have survived. The problem was so few did.
Laura Hillenbrand has done an excellent job in creating the imagery and stimulating the senses from the sticky yellow rubber raft to the numbing brutality experienced in the camps. This will be a book I remember for a long time.

I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I started a book and because of various factors could not continue. It took me about one third of the way through this book to realize that I had to put it down.
At all levels this book fails.