Age: High
school to adult.
Themes and topics for discussion:
Racism, prejudice, homosexuality, war, neglect, alcoholism
Summary: Ricky Perry enters the army after high school
becuase he can't afford to go to college, but he soon finds himself
shipped out to Vietnam. On top of trying to come into his own
adulthood and figure out who he really is, he is faced with the
horrifying realities of a terrible war and the dilemma of trying to
justify (or at least rationalize) his presence there.
Review: I was completely hooked on this book, if for
nothing else, simply for the fact that it deals with the Vietnam war
both sensitively and realistically. I grew up in the generation
after the war...the generation nobody talked to about it; so my
knowledge and understanding of it is conspicuously limited.
Reading this book has given me a much better understanding of what the
soldiers went through, without being over-the-top. Obviously, it
IS a war novel, so some of the scenes are a little graphic, but nothing
that most high school students couldn't handle.
A
Christian Perspective: Myers' approach to religion in this novel
is interesting. He includes discussions about religion as a matter of
course, with the suggestion that these discussions and heart-searchings
are natural when one faces one's own mortality. The portrayal is
neither pointedly positive nor negative. As far as the
homosexuality goes, it is only alluded to in order to emphasize the
theme of prejudice--one character is constantly teased, but his actual
sexual preference is never revealed.