Unbroken by: Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken by Laura Hillenburg was a thrilling book and a must-read for everyone! This action packed book covered the life of former Olympic runner Louie Zamperini. It showed Louie’s though childhood, through college, to the Olympics, to war, and his controversial life after war. Louie changed a lot throughout the course of the book. In the beginning of the book in Torrence, Louie was a constant trouble maker. From burglary to fighting, Louie was always the culprit. He struggled making friends with other kids. His older brother Pete saw his troubled brother going nowhere and knew something had to be done. So right when Louie started high school, Pete started training him. He got Louie into many sports, but he fell in love with running. Focusing on running helped Louie stay out of trouble. Over the course of the next few years, Louie would run in college and later in the Olympics. I think a huge change happened to Louie when he went to war. He was a bomber on planes. One day, the plan went down in the ocean. Only Louie, his friend Phil, and the tail gunner made it out alive. They had survive on rafts with very low rations. The tail gunner soon would sadly die, leaving Louie and Phil to float endlessly. They both started to go crazy. They were stranded for 47 days before being captured by the Japanese. Louie was treated terribly by the Japanese. He would be beat until he blacked out. He would get constant nightmares. Even after he was free and the war was over, he would battle nightmares about the beating every night in America. He got depressed and started drinking. He married into what turned out to be a sad marriage. He was a very sad man. As he got older, the nightmares stopped and Louie became religious again. He became free and stopped drinking. He started to enjoy life again. At the end of the book, Louie was doing great even his old age. He went through so much and yet he still is alive. He changed throughout the book from a trouble maker to a war veteran. He even carried the torch at the Olympic games. Just like the title he is still “unbroken” today.