mattdube 's review for:

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam

4.0

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I really enjoyed this incredibly square book. There are so many ways this memoir of a kid in the coal country of West Va who dreams of building rockets could go wrong, but except for a protracted ending, it doesn't. Instead, all the characters are fresh, complex, and well-drawn. Hickam doesn't make himself out to be a saint or excuse his actions from a later vantage point. He shows an awareness of the socio-economic reality of the company town he lived in, writes decent women as well as men, and moves the story along, bringing characters and scenarios to a head and resolving in a satisfying way. It's so polished you want to judge if it's not actually fiction.

This book, in spite of doing exactly what it promised, really impressed me.