Book Project Critical Review
James Egues
Black Hawk Down, written by Mark Bowden, a journalist, tells a story about a group of American Soldiers that were sent into Somalia on a humanitarian mission authorized by George Bush in 1992. Several of the helicopters, Black Hawks, that they brought with them into the mission were shot down and the crews were mutilated by a local militia. Every time a Black Hawk crashed, a brutal firefight broke out, resulting in deaths and injuries of American soldiers. The rescue team could not land to get the group because of local Somalis. The mission was overall a failure, the mission’s death toll was one thousand of Somalis and nineteen American Soldiers. and at the end of the book, soldiers are celebrating the return of Michael Durant, who was the pilot for the Super Six One Black Hawk. Michael Durant was the only survivor from the Super Six One group. Bowden’s work was an overall success because of his journalist writing style, point of view of the events, and organization of the story line.
As I was reading, I fell into the book and could not stop reading. It felt as if I was really there in the setting of the book. The style Mark Bowden used to write the book made me fall in love with the story. The writing brings out great visualization for the reader, making them feel like they are in the book with. Journalistic writing has a more exciting feel to it rather than classic novelistic writing. I feel as if classic novels are more creative and have more visualization rather than journalistic writing, and I love how Black Hawk Down has that journalistic feel to it. Journalistic writing is usually more putting words on paper for the reader to be able to easily read and understand what is going on. I enjoy this because it is straightforward and can have good visualization and novelistic writing is more creative and the author has more time to write their book. They can easily put together a picture with words for the reader. The style of writing made me pay more attention to the book and I felt very interested in what was going on. I could not stop myself from reading and every chance I got, I would read the book. When reading a classic novelistic book, I feel like I am reading the book for class, however when I read a journalistic book, I feel free and enjoy reading the book.
I enjoyed the different points of views Mark Bowden used throughout the book. Every other chapter or so, The point of view would change from the view of the soldiers to the view of local Somalis. It portrayed the difference between the two sides. It showed how an event could have a completely different effect on one side than the other. It helped me understand the different opinions and struggles between the two angles. It added some knowledge to the book and taught me somethings about the struggles the two groups faced. Everything the soldiers did had an impact on the Somalis, and everything the Somalis did had an impact on the soldiers. When a fight broke out it spanned across multiple chapters of the book and then switched to another perspective and continued onto some more chapters under that perspective. I thought this was helpful and very interesting.
The organization of the story line was neat and looked clean. The book was split into a couple different sections, The Assault, and Black Hawk Down and more. The book starts with The Assault and follows with Black Hawk Down and continues with a couple more. I thought this was cool and organized. Chapters were short and chronological. Because the chapters were so short, there were tons of chapters. I did not like that feature, but other than the length of the chapters, everything was fine. Each chapter was tightly packed with dialogue and action. There were very few chapters that were not containing action and or dialogue between characters. I thought this was fun to read and helped me stay interested in the book.
All in all, I loved the book Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden. I thought it was the perfect mixture of action and a sad story. Bowden’s work was an overall success because of his journalist writing style, point of view of the events, and organization of the story line. I loved the journalistic writing feel to the book. I enjoyed reading this book overall because I could not stop reading. I was attached to the book because of its writing style and the action. The different points of view from the soldiers and the Somalis surprised me and was very interesting. I thought the organization of the storyline was very neat and clean. I especially liked how the book was split into two parts. I would love to recommend Black Hawk Down to anyone who loves an action packed, war themed, sad story.
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Popular Highlights in this book
Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart. Give him money to speed his departure since we wish not to die in that man’s company.Highlighted by 291 Kindle readers- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for whoever has shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And those men afraid to go will think themselves lesser men as they hear of how we fought and died together.Highlighted by 230 Kindle readers
- “When war starts, a soldier wants like hell to be there, but once he’s there, he wants like hell to come home.”Highlighted by 222 Kindle readers
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Great book, bad condition
Book is great, was delivered quickly but came in terrible condition. Bunch of rips and book looked used. I know it doesn’t seem like a huge deal but I’m a bit of a perfectionist and like my books to stay in relatively great condition.
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Brighton
Awesome book to read, if you want to know about war
Reviewed in India on December 16, 2018
