Book #125: Unbroken

Title: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Author: Laura Hillenbrand

I just right now finished listening to Unbroken, and even if it might make me late to pick Maren up from school, I need to write about it immediately. I somehow had it in my mind that I wasn't going to like Unbroken. I thought Seabiscuit (also by Hillenbrand) was a fantastic book, but I've never loved war stories (too much, well, fighting, I guess) and when I think about Seabiscuit now all I think about is Diane Lane (in all fairness, I've only seen the previews). But I downloaded the book anyway, just because I knew it was going to be the "it" book of the Christmas season and I never want to feel left out when it comes to what I've read.

Hillenbrand hooked me. I'm not much of a crier, but I started crying before the prologue was over. I cried so much on the way down to school yesterday that I had to stop my car in the parking lot and check my mascara before I got out to go to class. Unbroken tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner (you know I have a soft spot for runners) whose plane went down over the Pacific during WWII. I won't tell you a lot more about the plot, although if you're like me you'll be so overcome with curiosity that you'll google him and find out whether or not he survived long before you reach that point in the book. And actually, according to my friend Michelle who liked the audiobook so much that she decided she had to have a paper copy, the photos in the hard copy of the book probably make it a better choice, although the narrator is fantastic (he does mispronounce "nihilism" though, or else I do).

Anyway, listening to Unbroken was a lot like reading The Winter's Tale for the first time (when I cried so hard I thought I was going to make myself sick), or like the reaction I have whenever I see or hear anything about Elizabeth Smart (I still cry, even all these years later). I think that when I read about people who think they've lost someone, and then that person turns out not to be lost after all, those are the kinds of stories that really get to me. And Louis ends up lost and found more times than seems possible for one man. Does that mean I just gave away the story? Even so, read it. You'll be glad you did.