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sambellenger's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
5.0
david_donhoff's review against another edition
5.0
An amazing account of what it takes, physically & of character, to become a US Navy SEAL... and the inside life as one. I highly recommend this book!
sophster_2000's review
This is an eye opening novel... I have never cried so hard in my life and I am so glad that I read this book. It made me realize the hardships and sacrifices that our soldiers make everyday for our country, and I could not be more thankful to them.
jgraydee's review
5.0
Okay -- in full disclosure, I didn't actually finished this book. But, Paul did and he said I knew the ending (the author lives, obviously) and that the second half of the book was much more of the same of the first -- Navy SEALS who are dedicated to their teams and to their missions, no matter what. I enjoyed reading about the SEALS training, and I don't know how anyone survives that. But, thank goodness some of them do, and I am very, very grateful to the service of these brave men and women. They have a dangerous, thankless job. The story is worth five stars on that basis alone!
mclellan's review
5.0
A great book! If only history classes could make history this interesting! Amazingly at the same time Luttrell was spending Hell Week in the Afganastain mountains fighting for his life, I was welcoming home my husand from his TDY in the middle-east. Lone Survivor is an impressive patriotic book that all Americans should read and maybe then more would appreciate how much the military gives for civilians to have the freedom they take for granted every day.
gardner98's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
2.25
Things the book does well: Once Marcus begins to talk about the mission that the book is based, the book completely changed. The Navy Seals are an insane force to be dealt with. The love that the men all had for each other is felt through the book. The bond that Navy Seals have is beautiful to learn about. I was in awe of that a Navy Seals do not leave fallen men behind to die, nor do they leave a dead Seal behind. Even in the heat of battle Seals will make getting fallen men out with them a top priority. The sacrifices and bravery made by Axe, Danny, Mickey and Marcus were truly inspiring to get to bear witness to. The friendship between Marcus and Sarawa, Mohammad Gulab and the village children was also so beautiful. The ancient tradition of Pashtunwali is something we should all look to emulate in our own communities. Marcus tells a lot about what Navy Seal training/testing is like. That was very interesting to learn about and once again commendable to anyone who can pass; the training requires an copious amount of physical and mental rigor
Things the book did poorly: The reason people read the book is to read about the Red Wings mission. That does not even began until 48% of the way through. I think the first half could have been majorly cut down. A lot of it is random tangents about the "liberal media." Marcus also paints a lot of broad strokes, which often blurred into misinformation. Marcus also made a few conclusory statements of "fact" without actually sighting to anything. There is a lot of time spent on the training and testing it takes to be a Seal, that while interesting, it is not why I chose to read the book.
Things the book did poorly: The reason people read the book is to read about the Red Wings mission. That does not even began until 48% of the way through. I think the first half could have been majorly cut down. A lot of it is random tangents about the "liberal media." Marcus also paints a lot of broad strokes, which often blurred into misinformation. Marcus also made a few conclusory statements of "fact" without actually sighting to anything. There is a lot of time spent on the training and testing it takes to be a Seal, that while interesting, it is not why I chose to read the book.
carolinastrong1994's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Absolutely incredible from start to finish. Luttrell’s description of the climatic battle will have you right there with him and his dying friends. You will feel as though you are going through BUD/S yourself when he talks about training. And the kindness that ultimately saves his life is an inspiration to us all. Also much much better than the movie.
larry1138's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
3.5
Extra note: this particular copy of the book had a misprint error starting from page 301 to page 332. These pages were instead reprints of pages 269 to page 300, which essentially meant I was missing 33 pages of the book due to what must have been a massive misprinting error. My friend has told me that the nature of this error may mean that there is another book out there with a copy of pages 300 to 332 in the 269-300 section. I'd be curious to see if anyone else has this copy! But I do find it incredible. This is genuinely the worst misprinting error I've ever seen in a book in my life.
Lone Survivor is probably my favorite war movie of all time, so this was going to be a spectacular challenge to see if the book could be better than the movie. The unsatisfying answer is that in some ways it is and in some ways it isn't.
What this book is is a heart wrenching and deeply personal memoir by Marcus Luttrell as he recounts a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan gone horribly wrong. Half the book is actually spent on his life growing up in East Texas and training to become a Navy SEAL, with particular emphasis on the difficulty of the notorious BUD/S course. He explains his background and a little bit of his personal philosophy. He's a patriotic veteran from Texas, you're gonna get some politics in here for sure.
The failed mission and subsequent rescue by local Afghan villagers were of course the most impactful parts of the book for me. The combat scenes of the movie seem to be lifted nearly identically from the pages. But the tale of how Luttrell survived with the help of Mohammad Gulab and his village is much more explored in detail here.
You can feel the deep appreciation Luttrell feels for these people as they genuinely risk everything to help him. This was the most inspiring part of the entire Lone Survivor story. It showed how Americans and Afghans could help each other. I think it's a message the world needs to hear more often: different people from different cultures can absolutely get along and become friends if they only take the chance to engage in person. Back in 2013 when the movie came out, I saw this as an incredibly important story to hold on to, especially in light of the quagmire that Afghanistan had become and the threat of a relatively new terror group called ISIS.
As the years have gone on and I've researched the background information of this story, certain inconsistencies and controversies have popped up. The friendship I thought Gulab and Luttrell would have maintained forever seems to have unfortunately disintegrated. There are disputes on the amount of Taliban fighters the SEALs of Operation Redwing faced.
Your own opinion of Luttrell may be colored due to his political leanings. Hell, right in the book he plainly lambasts the liberal media for betraying American war support and politicians for foisting rules of engagement that get soldiers killed. Some of this sentiment I agree with, some of it not so much. This kind of personal politics is something that can color a writer's view of past events, and in our polarized world now can color a reader's entire view of a book. It's part of the reason I don't usually like memoirs despite the fact I've read five or six of them in the last year. I believe my personal experience of learning about Operation Redwing may have been served better as a third person researched narrative rather than a memoir. But Luttrell's story demonstrates, like any good memoir should, that people are complex individuals with their own viewpoints and opinions. Readers cannot expect to find perfect objectivity in memoirs.
What is undeniable is that this memoir is a powerful and emotional story that Luttrell had to tell in order to honor his fallen comrades. You can tell when he is speaking truly from the heart: when he talks about his teammates, his training, and his experiences in the Afghan village that saved him. I found those parts to be the most emotional, compelling, detailed, and honest.
But is it better than the movie? Well, I think it does a better job at conveying the experience of becoming a SEAL, of the deep relationships that SEAL teams develop, and of the huge risks the Afghan villagers under Muhammad Gulab were taking to protect him. There was more humanization of the Afghans in this book than there was in the movie, which was very interesting to see because I thought the movie did a great job of showing the Gulab helping Luttrell. The book tells of how he bonded with specific individuals in the village and helped the kids whenever they got hurt.
The movie is more of an action war movie than anything else. It's got some of the greatest firefight scenes ever put to film. The viewer feels each bullet and explosion that Luttrell goes through and feels his relief when he's rescued by the Afghans and then Americans. It's difficult to see what it was trying to do. Certainly, it was lionizing the four SEALs who went into Operation Redwing. But it was perhaps the movie that most showed me how much war sucked. If it was supposed to be pro-war, pro-America propaganda, it had the opposite affect on me. I remember coming out of that theater both pumped from watching the best war movie I'd seen in my life and incredibly sad at the fate of Axe, Danny, and Mikey, and questioning how things could have gone so wrong and why we were still struggling to handle Afghanistan at the time in 2013. It's over a decade later and the unsatisfying answer is I'm not sure we were ever going to be able to "handle" Afghanistan.
A recommend from me for anyone who enjoyed the movie for what it was. I do think the book gives some interesting detail and insight into Luttrell's experience.
Lone Survivor is probably my favorite war movie of all time, so this was going to be a spectacular challenge to see if the book could be better than the movie. The unsatisfying answer is that in some ways it is and in some ways it isn't.
What this book is is a heart wrenching and deeply personal memoir by Marcus Luttrell as he recounts a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan gone horribly wrong. Half the book is actually spent on his life growing up in East Texas and training to become a Navy SEAL, with particular emphasis on the difficulty of the notorious BUD/S course. He explains his background and a little bit of his personal philosophy. He's a patriotic veteran from Texas, you're gonna get some politics in here for sure.
The failed mission and subsequent rescue by local Afghan villagers were of course the most impactful parts of the book for me. The combat scenes of the movie seem to be lifted nearly identically from the pages. But the tale of how Luttrell survived with the help of Mohammad Gulab and his village is much more explored in detail here.
You can feel the deep appreciation Luttrell feels for these people as they genuinely risk everything to help him. This was the most inspiring part of the entire Lone Survivor story. It showed how Americans and Afghans could help each other. I think it's a message the world needs to hear more often: different people from different cultures can absolutely get along and become friends if they only take the chance to engage in person. Back in 2013 when the movie came out, I saw this as an incredibly important story to hold on to, especially in light of the quagmire that Afghanistan had become and the threat of a relatively new terror group called ISIS.
As the years have gone on and I've researched the background information of this story, certain inconsistencies and controversies have popped up. The friendship I thought Gulab and Luttrell would have maintained forever seems to have unfortunately disintegrated. There are disputes on the amount of Taliban fighters the SEALs of Operation Redwing faced.
Your own opinion of Luttrell may be colored due to his political leanings. Hell, right in the book he plainly lambasts the liberal media for betraying American war support and politicians for foisting rules of engagement that get soldiers killed. Some of this sentiment I agree with, some of it not so much. This kind of personal politics is something that can color a writer's view of past events, and in our polarized world now can color a reader's entire view of a book. It's part of the reason I don't usually like memoirs despite the fact I've read five or six of them in the last year. I believe my personal experience of learning about Operation Redwing may have been served better as a third person researched narrative rather than a memoir. But Luttrell's story demonstrates, like any good memoir should, that people are complex individuals with their own viewpoints and opinions. Readers cannot expect to find perfect objectivity in memoirs.
What is undeniable is that this memoir is a powerful and emotional story that Luttrell had to tell in order to honor his fallen comrades. You can tell when he is speaking truly from the heart: when he talks about his teammates, his training, and his experiences in the Afghan village that saved him. I found those parts to be the most emotional, compelling, detailed, and honest.
But is it better than the movie? Well, I think it does a better job at conveying the experience of becoming a SEAL, of the deep relationships that SEAL teams develop, and of the huge risks the Afghan villagers under Muhammad Gulab were taking to protect him. There was more humanization of the Afghans in this book than there was in the movie, which was very interesting to see because I thought the movie did a great job of showing the Gulab helping Luttrell. The book tells of how he bonded with specific individuals in the village and helped the kids whenever they got hurt.
The movie is more of an action war movie than anything else. It's got some of the greatest firefight scenes ever put to film. The viewer feels each bullet and explosion that Luttrell goes through and feels his relief when he's rescued by the Afghans and then Americans. It's difficult to see what it was trying to do. Certainly, it was lionizing the four SEALs who went into Operation Redwing. But it was perhaps the movie that most showed me how much war sucked. If it was supposed to be pro-war, pro-America propaganda, it had the opposite affect on me. I remember coming out of that theater both pumped from watching the best war movie I'd seen in my life and incredibly sad at the fate of Axe, Danny, and Mikey, and questioning how things could have gone so wrong and why we were still struggling to handle Afghanistan at the time in 2013. It's over a decade later and the unsatisfying answer is I'm not sure we were ever going to be able to "handle" Afghanistan.
A recommend from me for anyone who enjoyed the movie for what it was. I do think the book gives some interesting detail and insight into Luttrell's experience.
alyssaindira's review against another edition
5.0
I have just finished reading the Lone Survivor. Let me tell you, I have never read a story with such rich detail, immense power behind the words and raw feelings etched into the pages. I really felt like I was on the battle field with him, experiencing his loses and pain. Marcus Luttrell was insanely brave and determined to fight under those conditions and struggle to survive basically. He is one hell of a SEAL and he is greatly honored. As are the rest of the SEALS and other branches of military that fight for America's freedom. They don't get the respect they deserve.