Hillenbrand employs Louis Zamperini’s life as a device to display a timeline of history. Instead of filling the reader with undesirable statistics and simply stating the most notable times in history Hillenbrand allows the reader to learn and indulge in the history of WW2 through writing Louis’ life herself with the aid of the younger lieutenant. Through writing the book as ‘an outsider’ Hillenbrand yields the opportunity to provide more than just a first person perspective of the war, but also allows the the stories of other victims as well further historical moments to be included. We track Louis’ life from his young days as a child kleptomaniac, to his Olympic days, travelling with him in his B-24 ‘Superman’ as a Bombardier to his 47 days on a life raft in the Pacific Ocean stranded. This is only the first third of the book as well. The story is about survival, courage, history and relationships but most of all it is to educate the masses as to what has happened in history, and allow us to appreciate what we have today.

Often with biographies they are seen as very self-centred, which is understandable as it is all about one person. Unbroken is Zamperini’s life story, however you come to understand that everyone is grounded and comprised of other people. Hillenbrand delves into the lives of other prisoners (of War) just as much as Louis, in an attempt to illustrate the wide spread affect the war had on civilian and military lives. While reading I felt just as much as part of the story as Zamperini himself as I found out exactly what war was like. The book is so beautifully detailed that I never felt exhausted with history or that I didn’t understand any of the terminology. Hillenbrand has mastered the art of paying homage to someone with respect whilst maintaining her alluring language that is ubiquitous on every page.

WW2 novels are quite easy to come by, but Unbroken is one of the most riveting, honest and beautiful. It’s raw emotion is somewhat matchable to Elie Wiesel’s memoir ‘Night’ yet is grounded deep into history and I feel like I have filled in the gaps of my WW2 knowledge, rather with other war novels they tend to slip on the smaller events and the many people involved.
The book deals with Christianity numerous times, as Louis begins to find solace in the arms of God. I am always interested in hearing others perceptions of religion as it often becomes quite a passionate subject and this was no disappointment. Especially towards the end of the book Christianity becomes a saviour for Louis and it is inspiring to see that for him and others (Russell Allen Phillips) who has endured so much that happiness and contentment was reachable whether found through faith or not. Unbroken demonstrates to a high level the power of people and the extent of to what the human spirit can encounter.

There are moments of joy within the book to lighten the load, and when the war is liberated the happiness beams from the words on the page. Whilst the book deals with death and violence profusely, it is somewhat necessary as it shows us as the reader how indebted we are to the millions who have died in war. This book for me deserves 5 stars as it showed me what I didn’t know, how naive I was about WW2 became apparent when I begun the book and I recommend this book to anyone partially interested or heavily devoted to WW2 novels. It is a long book, but can be classified as picture book if that makes you feel any better.

This is an extraordinary book. One of the best books on WW2 that I have ever read.



I highly recommend it to anyone!