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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
WDM's classic about the Vietnam War; follows Richie Perry from his trip to Viet Nam to the end of his time in country.
This is early Myers, so I did not enjoy the writing as much as some of his more current work, but it is still a good read.
This is early Myers, so I did not enjoy the writing as much as some of his more current work, but it is still a good read.
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
It was AWESOME! I'm really into reading fiction stories about war times so this was a really good read for me. If you like war fiction stories, you should definitely read this :)
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I had to read this book in class and I absolutely fell in love with the characters. I love learning about the era during which the Vietnam War occurred which probably added to my excitement over this novel. It actually influenced me to read some other of Myers' works but none that I've read have had me by the heart like this one. As I read I was rooting for each of the men and boys. Every loss hit me right in the feels. Man, do I wish this was a movie.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
4.5 stars!! read for school hecka cool! totally recommend. now i gotta write an essay for it 👩💻
Fallen Angels was #11 on the top 100 banned books of 2000-2009 and #85 of the top 100 from 2010-2019. This book is a heart-breaking look into the experience of a young black man fighting in the Vietnam War. I thought this book is fabulously well-written; it steeps the reader in the fear and emotions of the soldiers and describes some scenes with the cold clinical language of someone disassociating from that situation - a common occurrence during traumatic events.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
In the past four months, I've changed jobs, been forced to move out of my apartment back in with my parents temporarily, and begun the arduous task of DIYing a long neglected house into a livable space without, y'know, electrical wires dangling into the sink and cracked wood-paneled walls. I am finding it hard to have the attention span for any reading above an eighth grade level, and even find myself momentarily overwhelmed by Tess Gerritsen. (Let's meditate on that for a moment. Body Double? CURRENTLY TOO COMPLICATED.)
So I decided that this would be a good time to return to an old childhood favorite. Fallen Angels was read, by me, several times in approximately sixth grade to junior high school, and I still can't believe that pre-teen Rachel chose to wrench herself from an endless diet of RL Stine and Christopher Pike for a serious book about a serious moment of historical relevance like the Vietnam War. But this one had a huge effect at the time. I remember reading about those young men in the trenches, killing, hearing shots and not knowing where the shots were coming from, and feeling suffocated by how helpless they must have felt. At the time, I remember thinking that there is a kind of fear (guerilla warfare in a needless war) that is incomprehensible to my generation. This is obviously not true any longer, because of Iraq, but at the time I wanted to know even more about what it was to have that experience that was so foreign to me. I read several non-fiction books about Vietnam after Fallen Angels, glossing over descriptions of artillery and military maneuvering to the parts about what it was like to actually be in the shit seeing your friends die as teenagers and fearing the same for yourself. I was stunned into something like reverence for war veterans, which is still a complicated emotion for me as I fundamentally hate war and what happens during war.
Reading this book again as an adult, I am happy to say that it is still easily one of the best YA books I have ever read -- one of the most realistic books of war, YA or adult, easily. WDM's writing is unsentimental, letting the subject matter and Perry's fear of dying carry the appropriate gravitas. As an adult I appreciate the race relations element of the story more, the feeling of the black soldiers that they were being used as fodder on point or holding up the rear. The feeling that their lives mattered less to their commanders, even though they were fighting the same war next to the white boys in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. WDM's story captures a whole generation.
The other cool thing about Fallen Angels is that as soon as I started reading, Peewee, Johnson, Lobel and Perry came back to me immediately, like old friends. For as poor as my reading recall is, that's really something. I would never call it "comfort reading" given the subject matter -- it is more like discomfort reading, as it should be -- but oh, I do love this book and was happy to revisit it.
So I decided that this would be a good time to return to an old childhood favorite. Fallen Angels was read, by me, several times in approximately sixth grade to junior high school, and I still can't believe that pre-teen Rachel chose to wrench herself from an endless diet of RL Stine and Christopher Pike for a serious book about a serious moment of historical relevance like the Vietnam War. But this one had a huge effect at the time. I remember reading about those young men in the trenches, killing, hearing shots and not knowing where the shots were coming from, and feeling suffocated by how helpless they must have felt. At the time, I remember thinking that there is a kind of fear (guerilla warfare in a needless war) that is incomprehensible to my generation. This is obviously not true any longer, because of Iraq, but at the time I wanted to know even more about what it was to have that experience that was so foreign to me. I read several non-fiction books about Vietnam after Fallen Angels, glossing over descriptions of artillery and military maneuvering to the parts about what it was like to actually be in the shit seeing your friends die as teenagers and fearing the same for yourself. I was stunned into something like reverence for war veterans, which is still a complicated emotion for me as I fundamentally hate war and what happens during war.
Reading this book again as an adult, I am happy to say that it is still easily one of the best YA books I have ever read -- one of the most realistic books of war, YA or adult, easily. WDM's writing is unsentimental, letting the subject matter and Perry's fear of dying carry the appropriate gravitas. As an adult I appreciate the race relations element of the story more, the feeling of the black soldiers that they were being used as fodder on point or holding up the rear. The feeling that their lives mattered less to their commanders, even though they were fighting the same war next to the white boys in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement. WDM's story captures a whole generation.
The other cool thing about Fallen Angels is that as soon as I started reading, Peewee, Johnson, Lobel and Perry came back to me immediately, like old friends. For as poor as my reading recall is, that's really something. I would never call it "comfort reading" given the subject matter -- it is more like discomfort reading, as it should be -- but oh, I do love this book and was happy to revisit it.