Reviews

To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino

azexplorer's review against another edition

dark informative sad slow-paced

2.5

sokolov's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

lernstreads's review against another edition

5.0

This was a wonderfully written book. It was obviously a heart wrenching subject but so thought prvoking. We must remember lest we forget and history repeat itself. Never again.

catsunshine's review against another edition

4.0

— japan

ash24314's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

rashidmalik's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

pterodog's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This book was absolutely brutal to read. I thought I knew a reasonable amount about the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but after reading To Hell and Back I realised I actually knew very little. It takes you from the moments just before the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima right through to the 21st century, narrating the lives of the victims and survivors of the two bombs. Some of the descriptions were so horrific and vivid that I think they will stay with me for the rest of my life. Despite the book doing an excellent job of relaying the survivors memories, I was left with the overwhelming feeling that there were no words sufficient enough to ever describe the horror of what they experienced.

This book should be required reading for all. When I got to the end of it, I felt as though it would be completely justified for everyone who survived the bombings to have hated the Western world for the rest of their lives, and yet so many went on to preach extensively about not only making sure a nuclear weapon is never used again but also about kindness and human decency. It was deeply emotional to read the trauma and loss they all went through and then to also read how they went on to make such a huge positive impact on the world. I have to hope that their message has been heard and nobody will ever have to experience this kind of suffering ever again.

To Hell and Back is unflinchingly detailed and pulls no punches. I started it against nuclear warfare and ended it the same way, just even more so. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Cancer, Death, Blood, Child death, Chronic illness, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Vomit, and Miscarriage

Minor: Colonisation, Racism, and Sexual assault

scip's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death of parent, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, War, Medical content, Mental illness, Violence, Child death, Blood, Cancer, Infertility, Pregnancy, Terminal illness, Death, Genocide, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Xenophobia

achillleez's review against another edition

5.0

this should be required reading

anhedonia_n_anomie's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

An incredible, unflinching, emotional look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; a grueling timeline of the events in both cities in the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months afterwards. There's a focus on the brutal, and often horrifyingly otherworldly, effects of the bombs—utilizing many, many hellish survivor stories—as well as exploring the ethics and justifications of the decision to use them.
Very well-written, thorough, and engrossing, and it's about an important subject very few people have written in any depth about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Violence, Body horror, Child death, Death, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Grief, and Medical trauma