Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand | Teen Ink

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

February 27, 2013
By Nate Weaver BRONZE, Haddon Heights, New Jersey
Nate Weaver BRONZE, Haddon Heights, New Jersey
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Laura Hillenbrand is author of many books. Unbroken and Seabiscuit were two of Laura main books that she wrote. Laura was born in Fairfax Virginia but was raised in Maryland. The book Seabiscuit had to do with race horses and it related to sports and that is what Laura liked to write about, Laura was looking for someone to write about someone who had true talent. That’s when she finally found Louis Zamperini the track star. Louis is the main character in the book named Unbroken. Laura talked to him and had a splendid conversation with him and she felt compelled to write another a book on his life.
While reading this book many emotions hit me. First I was laughing and enjoying a simple easy read. The book first took me to Louis high school time. Louis was an amazing track star- he broke so many records in his high school career. He soon made it to the Olympics shortly after. Louis went to the Olympics two times and won a gold medal on the second time he went to the Olympics.
Louis was not able to stay in track because he went into World War II. So from being a track star he is now in the Air Force. Every day he had to fly a B-24. For those of you who don’t know this plane was known to kill more people in practice than some battles. The planes were so dangerous that if someone were to walk across the plane it would unbalance the plane and make it basically impossible to maneuver. The risk of danger was really high for Louis and his crew.
One of the days Louis had a simple task which was to fly around an island and safely back to land. But he encountered a Japanese fighter plane and was shot down. Only three people were saved from the crash including Louis. Right before the plane hit the water, they grabbed the safety boat and the fishing kit. That was all the supplies that they had in this little inflatable boat that they also managed to salvage. In this little kit they grabbed were some very crucial things that could possible help them live and get rescued.
As the men had to sit in the boat for 44 days they all were exhausted and had no energy left in their bodies. They had faced multiple challenges and on top of that almost near death experience. If I were to be one of them I would have wanted to just quit. Although they faced many challenges they also were able to overcome those challenges in very strategic ways.

After the men were rescued they felt as if they were bound to survive. But what really happened was the Japanese had captured them and put through these concentration camps. They were called POWs and they were people put out to try and kill Americans and that’s who Louis and his crew had to live with for another two years. With all of these events that happened to Louis, he still survived to tell about it.
This book was an amazing read for me. I never really liked reading books but this book -no joke- I could not put down. I liked this book for two reasons: one is because it kept me on my toes. Also because I also wanted to find out what was going to happen next. It’s a long book but flies by really quickly. I would suggest this book to anyone who wants to either have a good book to read or likes reading about sad war stories. Overall this entire book is a pleasurable book to read. So if you are someone like me I would suggest picking up this book and reading it.

The author's comments:
This is my favorite book to read it took me almost a month to read it because i could not put it down.

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