book review

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien catches the eye of the reader. This book was very easy to follow and kept me entertained throughout the whole book.

The theme for this book would to inform the readers about the hardships about the war in Vietnam. This book talked about what the soldiers carried, if it was their equipment or items from back home that help keep them sane. The book talked about the weapons and how much they weighed and about how much the items they brought from back home helped keep them pushing and fighting to make it back home.

The narrator in this book name was never given. He was a young man that was drafted into the military. He always refers to the first man he killed and how he regretted doing it but had to to keep him alive.  By the way he talked you could tell that he missed his friends that had been killed in the war. He would often talk about Curt Lemon who was killed while playing a careless game of who could catch the smoke grenade, the hot potato of war. He was very caring and kind, he was soft hearted, you could tell this because he did not want to kill. Although he did to survive.

The scene was Vietnam, not just Vietnam but Vietnam during the war.  This set the scene for the story because it was were the war took place, without this war this story would have never been written, therefor this played a major role in the book. It provided the conflict in this book because they had to leave the United States and fight this war, that none of them wanted to fight in. Without this setting there would not have even been a conflict.

This book connects to me because my cousin is in the active military. He often talks about what they carry and the little things that keep him pushing on. He talks about how important this items are to him while he is in Afghanistan. I was really able to connect to this book through my cousin.

I would recommend this book to anyone with family in the military because I was able to connect so well I believe that they would too and it would help them understand the situation their family members are going through.