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?

This book was incredibly descriptive. In one scene, 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

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Reviewed by Matthew D.

You are a firefighter in a kitchen fire. You make a split second decision to get out. Seconds later, the floor collapses, and you find out that it was a fire in the basement, not a fire in the kitchen. How did you know this?

Blink is a psychological non-fiction book about how people can make split-second life-saving decisions in the “blink” of an eye. Art experts can decide in a flash that a sculpture is fake. For example, a plainclothes police officer can interpret a scene of a life-or-death situation in a fraction of time. President Ronald Reagan's assassination took just 1.8 seconds. In an assassination attempt of a South Korean boy, an assassin stands up and shoots himself in his leg. Then, he shoots at the president and hits the president’s wife. Later, a bodyguard shoots back and hits an eight year-old boy. This sequence took three-point-five seconds. Throughout the book, you can read many different other stories and learn how Blink works.

First, I enjoyed this book since it had a lot of real-life evidence to support much of the book’s information and the author tells the information through interesting stories. Malcolm Gladwell talks about the Pepsi Challenge, where Pepsi and CocaCola race to become the world’s most popular soft drink company. Gladwell says: “In the early 1980s, the Coca-Cola Company was profoundly nervous about its future. Once, Coke had been far and away the dominant soft drink in the world. But Pepsi had been steadily chipping away at Coke's lead.” Before I read this, I did not know that Pepsi and Coke were such big competitors.

Next, Malcolm Gladwell makes the concept of Blink relatable by describing everything in great detail and making someone who is not a psychologist know what he means. This is important because there is no point in reading a book in which the concept is not reinforced and known. Malcolm Gladwell also shows both sides of the equation. Gladwell tells us about a man named Golomb, who is an excellent car salesman: “Being a successful salesman like Golomb is a task that places extraordinary demands on the ability to thin-slice.” You can really compare your life and experiences to the story in the book.

All in all, I would rate this book 9/10 and I would encourage teens, adults, and more mature audiences to read. Other books by Malcolm Gladwell include Talking to Strangers, David and Goliath, What the Dog Saw, Outliers, and The Tipping Point. What are you waiting for? Time to cuddle up and dive into a great book!

Back Bay Books, 320 pages