fallen angels

Reader Response to Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Back of the book reads: "On a jungle battlefront where one misplaced step could be any soldier's last, every move can mean the difference between death and survival. Richie Perry, Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Pewee are all in Vietnam. They came there for different reasons, but now they share a single dream--getting out alive."

My response:
I haven't quite finished the novel. I'm about 1/2 way through it. It is an interesting read. however, it does drag in places. I'm thinking you could totally supplement this book with We Were Soldiers or Full Metal Jacket. Again, like God of Beer, the characters aren't that complex. Myers seems like he's just recording certain events and interspersing flashbacks into them. It's about 300 pages, and I want to finish it today. I'm subbing for a class at LHS, and they have to read it. There are some great descriptions. For instance:

"The sight of all the bodies lying around, the smell of blood and puke and urine, made my head spin, pushed me to a different place. I wanted to fire my weapon, to destroy the nightmare around me. I didn't want it to be real, this much death, this much dying, this waste of human life. I didn't want it" (177).

I think it's just starting to get interesting. Richie isn't exactly sure why he's in Nam, and I'm not exactly sure, either. I know he gave a BS answer to his friends about "keeping America free."

I never realized how young these guys were!

"I had come into the army at 17, and i remembered who I was, and who I was had been a kid. The war hadn't meant anything to me then, maybe because I had never gone through anything like it before. All I had thought about combat was that I would never die, that our sied would win, and that we would all go home somehow satisfied. And now all the dying around me, and all the killing, was making me loko at myself again, hoping to find something more than the kid I was. Maybe I could sift thourhg the kid's stuff, the basketball, the Harlem streets, and find the man I would be. I hoped I did it before I got killed" (187).

"You know that stuff I got from that woman? That hair stuff? I put some on my lip to grow me a mustache. Guess it don't work too cool" (188).

Ok. the book continues on in somewhat of a monotonous tone. the first half is ackie to tolerate. It really drags in places- mostly because i'm not really used to all of the army jargon.

The last half of the book gives a grotesque eye-witness account of confrontations in the vietnam boones. It ends on a hopeful note as Richie returns to the real world. You get the feeling that things aren't really going to change. The war has certainly impacted his life- he sees a lot of his buddies die, and I'm sure people can relate to the losses.

I feel sorry for the guys who were in Nam. When they came back, they didn't get the respect they deserved for putting their lives on the line.

It's so long, though! He says in 300 pages what could have been said in about 200! The first half is really slow, but the last half really speeds up. It's action-packed. Not really my favorite book in the world. I can see some people really getting into it, but not many. judging from the way my class reacted to this novel, I'll have to find a better book on the Vietnam war.