Review note: One of the staff members in the earlier days of Facebook had Hillenbrand as a friend. This book was not out at this point. Seabiscuit, however, was. --Booklight staff

Unbroken is a work that makes a person question the reasons why and how the universe works as it does. Perhaps the reason why this question is put so forcefully forward concerns the sheer amount of suffering present pressed between the front and back book covers on these pages.

Louie Zamperini begins life as a thief, although not an especially malicious one--more the kind that will steal a pie off a window sill and run--and by the way that running is going to prove to be rapid. Eventually, his theiving ways are turned into a possible useful focus in becoming a race runner as inspired by his brother. Zamperini runs all the way into the 1936 Berlin Olympics where he competes in the 5,000 meter distance race during a sweltering heatwave. To add a certain Ben Hur flavoring, some of the other runners attempt to remove him from the race by kicking him with their cleats. This bloodies him up, but he finishes eighth and manages to run the last lap in 56 seconds despite all the injuries he has received. This accomplishment, which was unheard of, attracts the attention of one certain Adolf Hitler who wishes to shake his hand for the feat.

Zamperini goes off to college, and there sets another racing 15 year record for the time it took him to run a mile. War breaks out, and this is actually where the story of Unbroken really begins and where Hillenbrand starts to hone her pen on the tale to follow.

Zamperini is placed in the position of being a B-24 bombardier. His job is to make sure the bombs hit their target. He does this job well and succeeds in undertaking many combat missions where his luck is put to the maximum test. He still makes it home. It is only when he and his crew are asked to go on a rescue mission that his plane goes down killing everyone but three of his crew that his luck runs out--at least in terms of the mechanical integrity of the plane. Thing is, the plane was not even shot at. It just stopped working.

From this point forward, everything that can go wrong and should kill a person happens. Forty-seven days are spent in a raft with sharks circling. Water runs out. The heat beats down oppressively. People hallucinate. Strafing by enemy zeros occurs. Then, the raft makes landfall, only to be welcomed by Japanese forces which are occupying the region. The raft, and its concomitant hardships, it turns out, are a vacation compared to what follows.

While the interview of Hillenbrand that occurs in the back of the work focuses on the theme of "forgiving the unforgivable", it seems the bigger question is how Zamperini "endures the unendurable." The psychological torture and physical stresses stagger the imagination. The Japanese have no intention of following any Geneva Convention war protocol, and are out to kill all prisoners one way or the other. Some are more sadistic than others. One specific guard who is called "The Bird" by the prisoners, is especially cruel and delights in inventing new tortures for the prisoners but especially, it seems, Zamperini. At each moment in this book when relief looks imminent, something much, much worse happens instead. This momentum continues for what seems like a small eternity and by the time the reader is done they feel as if they have gone through some kind of abuse simply by knowing such a chain of events occurred.

Nonetheless, Zamperini must find both the will to survive and the answer to whatever it is that faith means to him if he wishes to continue to move forward. How this story concludes and how the answers are found is incredible. If Anne Frank is the Jewish voice of World War II and its hardships, then Zamperini ought to at least be the voice of American POW's who were taken captive by the Japanese--if not POW's as a whole. You owe it to yourself to read this one if you want to be informed on how how the other prisoner's of war fared and what that meant in the Asian theaters of World War II.

Note: This article can be read here as well: booklight.top