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zjames 's review for:
The Things They Carried
by Tim O'Brien
I wish O'Brien had written a straight-up memoir of his Vietnam experiences instead of this book that rides the fence between memoir and fiction so much that the reader doesn't even know what to think about its contents.
I went into the novel knowing it was fiction based on fact, but O'Brien treats it like a memoir. He even dedicates the book to some of the fictional characters in it and names the main character after himself. This feels like an odd blending of the truth, an excuse to exaggerate or even put lies into a book that acts like a factual work. Some scenes in this book made me physically nauseous, but then I would wonder if they really happened or not. It kept taking me out of the book.
I went into the novel knowing it was fiction based on fact, but O'Brien treats it like a memoir. He even dedicates the book to some of the fictional characters in it and names the main character after himself. This feels like an odd blending of the truth, an excuse to exaggerate or even put lies into a book that acts like a factual work. Some scenes in this book made me physically nauseous, but then I would wonder if they really happened or not. It kept taking me out of the book.