Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Reviewed by Aarav

Your military plane crashes into the sea and almost three quarters of its passengers die. When you reach land, you get pulled into the enemy’s prison camps. They are brutal to you and your countrymen. How do you live?

In Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Louis Zamperini is a former Olympian from a small town in the suburbs called Torrance, California. World War ll drags him into the American military. He serves in the Air Force, bombing important Japanese military bases in the Green Hornet.  But one day, on a rescue mission, the Green Hornet crashes into the sea. Of the eleven people on the plane, only three survive. They are stranded there for weeks, trying to survive as long as possible, and fending off terrifying sharks. When they finally make it to shore, they are transported to a Japanese prison camp. Louis’s number one goal is to survive at these horrid places, but there is a deeper question: If Louis makes it out alive, will he mentally recover from what he experiences at the camps, or will those horrible ordeals scar him for life?

One reason I enjoyed this book is because it was descriptive. In one scene of the book, the author describes how inconsistent one of the Japanese officers was. Hillenbrand says, “One POW[Prisoner of War] recalled seeing him gently praise a POW, fly into a fury and beat him unconscious, then quietly eat his lunch.” This book is so descriptive, I felt like I was in the prison camp myself when I was reading it.

Another reason this book was so good was that it was dramatic. When Louis is in the ocean, one of the many examples of this is, “Without warning, one of the sharks Louie had touched leapt up at terrific speed, lunging at Louie’s head. Louie threw both hands in front of his face. The shark struck him head on…”  Unbroken is so dramatic and terrifying, I gasped in shock and terror as some of the many surprises in this novel left me shaking in my shoes.

I would recommend this novel to people who enjoy action and history. I would give this story a rating of 9/10. Unfortunately, this book is not part of a series. Unbroken is one of the best history books I have ever read. If you want to find out what happened to Louis, why don’t you give it a try? I’m sure you’ll like it!

Penguin Random House LLC., 292 pages