"Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand

Holy mother of pearl, is this a GOOD BOOK! I started this book last month but because of the sheer volume of it, it took me a while to read and then I got sick. This book emotionally touched me in so many ways. 

I feel like I have read A LOT about World War II. It's one of my favorite eras to read about because it fascinates and horrifies me at the same time. I have read many, MANY Holocaust memoirs, books on the "Band of Brothers", and other works. I felt like I was pretty well read on the entire subject of WWII. This book proved me wrong. Yes, I've read about war tactics, Pacific theater battles, life in German-occupied countries, and most of the extermination camps in Europe. What I had NOT read was an account of our amazing POWs that were held in horrible conditions in Japanese POW camps. This book made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think, it made me ANGRY, and it opened my eyes to a whole other side of history that I had never really known about. 

To try to keep the story as concise as possible without giving away pivotal parts, this story follows one of the most amazing POWs we have had the privilege to have in our country. Louis Zamperini was a troubled child that eventually turned to running to give him purpose in life. He became such an amazing runner that he made it to the 1936 Olympics in Germany. When WWII began, Louis joined the military to fight for his country. What he didn't expect was a plane wreck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a record-setting amount of days in a small yellow raft, almost being eaten by sharks, being strafed multiple times by Japanese bombers, and almost making it to an island before being captured by the Japanese. What followed next is almost too horrific to write about. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! Overall, it is pretty clean. There are a few swear words and the "f" word is used once (because it was used in a quote). The story, though, is well worth the read, and so well written. You may recognize the author's name - she wrote "Seabiscuit" which went on to become an award-winning film. There are fabulous photographs, mostly provided by Louis himself, and the writing style of the book is awesome in that it has fabulous descriptions, fantastic details, and footnotes to give further information about a certain statistic, person mentioned, or place. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly suggest this for anyone who loves reading biographies or WWII history.