by Tim O'Brien
First published 1999
Drafted and shipped to the jungles of Vietnam, a young soldier finds himself in a maelstrom of mud, blood, and moral confusion. Grappling with the absurdity of war and the weight of his own mortality, he must navigate a minefield of bureaucratic obfuscation and battlefield chaos. As his innocence erodes, he clings to the fading hope that he might make it home alive.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, war, military-fiction, biography-memoir
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vietnam
Period: 20th century
225 pages · Paperback · Crown
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, war