Reviews - The Things They Carried

3.96k reviews for:

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

4.12 AVERAGE

adrienne_bc's review against another edition

5.0

Absolutely stunning, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

laphenix's review against another edition

3.0

I picked up this book after having been blown away by the short story (AKA Chapter 1), however the rest of the book, while good, fell far from living up to the first chapter.

isabellalar21's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

swagnerdavid's review against another edition

2.75

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book has some great chapters, such as Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong, Speaking of Courage, and In the Field. These chapters contain strong material, and are written well. Overall, I do not think this is a well-written book though. To start with, it lacks a consistent theme. The talk of war is alternately in-the-trenches and twenty years later in-my-mind ramblings. These ramblings are often hard to understand. There is talk of truth, story truth, alternate truth, half truths, etc...
O'Brien thoroughly confuses me as to what happened, what didn't happen, and why he's going into the nitty gritty on his subjective truths. Write the facts, or write fiction. Stop confusing the reader by mish mashing them all together and getting meta with "the story is fake but it's actually more real than the truth". This "book" is essentially a handful of strong short stories about war slipped between a lot of low quality diary entries that feel like the author is trying too hard to convey his interpretations of conflicted thoughts. Write simply. Get rid of the flowery words and excessive analogies. If the reader doesn't resonate with the story, it would've missed them no matter how you wrote it. No need to belabor the point with all the fluff.
The last few chapters were strong, and the book finished well, so I wanted to add this last paragraph. Overall worth reading, but consider skimming if the book gets in the weeds on what was real and what was contrived.

secretrusalka's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective sad

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

i remember reading this and going “oh it’s a war book, i don’t like these” but it’s so much more than that. this is honestly such an insightful and important read. even if you don’t like war stories you’ll love this.

Content Warnings