Unbroken

             The inflatable raft, holding three starving airmen, is barely afloat in the Pacific. Sharks circle the boat. Death is very near. One of these men is former Olympic runner, Louis Zamperini. How did he get here?

            Unbroken, written by Lauren Hillenbrand, is the gripping biography of this man, this Louis ‘Louie’ Zamperini. During his childhood, Louie discovered that he could run, that is, as an athlete runs. Soon, he was smashing records all over the country, trying to run a four-minute mile. He got into the 1936 Olympics, which were held in Germany, and, although he finished eighth line in the 5000 meter, caught the attention of none other than Adolph Hitler, who demanded a meeting with “the boy with the fast finish.”

            Immediately after returning home, he began training for the 1940 Olympics, but all was about to change. The Olympics were scheduled to be in Tokyo, Japan, but, due to the outbreak of World War II, they were canceled and moved to Helsinki, Finland. Then, as WWII began to ravage Scandinavia, the Olympics were suspended indefinitely. Louie joined the Army and became a crewmember on a bomber. Several times, Death missed him, thanks to the expert pilot. But, on a fateful day, a plane went down in the Pacific. Louie’s team was called to go scour the ocean with another crew and look for the missing plane, or at least the survivors. Somewhere in the middle of the ‘Big Blue’, an accident happened that would change Louie’s life forever. The rust-bucket plane his crew was ordered to fly on this mission had four engines. One went out. The pilot told the engineer to stop the propeller from turning, which was a normal procedure when an engine went out. The real problem began when the engineer stopped the wrong prop. Now two engines were out and the plane plummeted to the depths. Only three men survived. Now, they were afloat in the Pacific, literally warding off death with paddles. After weeks of floating, with little more than raw bird meat and rain water to survive on, only two men remained. Louie and the pilot. A ship came into view and they became elated with joy that maybe, just maybe, it would be an American vessel. The happiness quickly turned to horror when they saw the flag. It wasn’t the Stars and Stripes, but the Rising Sun of the Japanese Empire.

            Unbroken is a story of survival, courage, and, most importantly, forgiveness. Find out the whole story by reading this amazing book. I would recommend this work to a more mature audience due to some language scattered in the pages.