Fallen Angels
Walter Dean Myers
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October 8, 2012

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.

February 9, 2012

Perry is a very young man from Harlem with not many options. So he signs up with the army during the Vietnam War. Welcome to a world of very unpleasant educational opportunities!

Those first few days in country are strange, new and sometimes exciting. The men, well...boys, really, admire another guy's larger, nasty-looking gun. Perry learns the first rule of war - "Hours of boredom, seconds of terror." He sees his first dead bodies and learns that a dead friend is a human being to be treated with respect. A dead Vietnamese soldier is just a trophy.

He does things he is not proud of having done.

"They died because they were in Nam, where being scared made you do things you would regret later."

The book's combat scenes are brutal, including one "Holy Shit!" moment that I had to read twice to actually believe what I had just read.

Expressing words of sympathy over a fallen soldier, one of Perry's commanders said it best --

"My father used to call all soldiers angel warriors," he said. "Because usually they get boys to fight wars."

April 29, 2022

'Fallen Angels' by Walter Dean Myers is one of the best novels I've read about what being an American soldier on the ground fighting a war is like. The author said after the book was published, which was 1983, women began buying this book to give to their sons and husbands. The women did not want the boys and men to enlist. Reading the novel did change minds, and some of the boys stayed in high school instead of signing up to go to war.

I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:

"Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers is a young adult novel about seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the Army when unable to afford college and is sent to fight in the Vietnam War. Perry and his platoon—Peewee, Lobel, Johnson, and Brunner—come face-to-face with the Vietcong, the harsh realities of war, and some dark truths about themselves. A thoughtful young man with a gift for writing and love of basketball, Perry learns to navigate among fellow soldiers under tremendous stress and struggles with his own fear as he sees things he’ll never forget: the filling of body bags, the deaths of civilians and soldier friends, the effects of claymore mines, the fires of Napalm, and jungle diseases like Nam Rot.

Available as an e-book for the first time on the 25th anniversary of its publication, Fallen Angels has been called one of the best Vietnam War books ever and one of the great coming-of-age Vietnam War stories. Filled with unforgettable characters, not least Peewee Gates of Chicago who copes with war by relying on wisecracks and dark humor, Fallen Angels “reaches deep into the minds of soldiers” and makes “readers feel they are there, deep in the heart of war.”

Fallen Angels has won numerous awards and honors, including the Coretta Scott King Award, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Booklist Editors Choice, and a School Library Journal Best Book. Fallen Angels was #16 on the American Library Association’s list of the most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000 for its realistic depiction of war and those who fight in wars."

Richie Perry is a kid when he arrives in Vietnam in 1967, unaware of the bloodiness of war injuries and the chaos of war. Like many, he enlisted because he had nothing else he could think of to do with his life. At first, he is cautious of the other squad members. They come from everywhere - from Chicago to Georgia to Puerto Rico, from small towns and big cities. Everyone is a stranger. Some of the officers seem competent, while others make him afraid because they don't really seem to know how to protect the squad when they are out on patrol or under fire. But most of all, the shock of killing and the extreme fear of maybe being killed changes everything he understands and believes.

The main character, who narrates the story in first-person perspective, and along with the other soldiers, speaks conversationally and in joking around with the usual profanity of young men. This swearing caused many schools to ban the book in the 1980's.

Banning a book because of an occasional printed "asshole" or "chickenshit" or "damn" is incredibly strange to me since the book also describes bloody painful injuries, graphic brutality and agonizing deaths. Briefly. The characters also suffer horrible fears and nightmares, see friends die, and all the while having no understanding of their orders into life-and-death situations. The soldiers don't know how to separate the enemy fighters from civilians, and they accidentally or purposefully kill children. Perry daydreams about going home, desperate to live, as do his friends. They cry for their mothers, literally, in battle and in dying. The novel is a realistic depiction of being a teenage soldier in an actual war - the Vietnam War. But heaven's! The characters say "shit" and "fuck" openly in print! Can't be having swear words being read by high school boys! Omg!

I highly recommend this book, especially to high school boys who think war is all fun and excitement. And especially to Black-Americans. The author, a Black-American, mentions in passing some military officers will intentionally order the Black men of a squad or battalion to face the enemy upfront first, keeping the White guys safely back away from the brunt of the fighting. However, this is not a predominant or approved tactic, nor does it continue for very long, because men of all colors who are dying together or who are facing death together actually tend to bond fiercely together despite the few racists. In the Vietnam War, there were rumors that American soldiers sometimes conspired to "frag" officers or other soldiers who were murderously racist or dangerously stupid.

I did see online that some bans of this book are occurring today because of the brief mention of racism in the book - so, now it's being defined in some states as a novel promoting critical race 'theory', or it is felt to be unpatriotic. Conservative adults simply don't want this award-winning book in the hands of any young men from any era, whether it's the twentieth or twenty-first century. Where would the country be if young men understood and fought in war as well-educated and thoughtful soldiers, instead of as murderous prejudiced thugs? Right? Ok, then. I suggest buying a hardcopy to pass around.

January 31, 2009

This is the story of one soldiers tour in Vietnam. It shows the war through his eyes. He is a soldier mostly for economic reasons, not because he has a particular position for or against the war. It details both the boredom and life threatening action of the Vietnam war.

This will appeal to teens who like war violence. Boys who want to be soliders or like war will like this book. It is very realistic, not a "James Bond" type of violence, and the soliders reaction to it is very realistic. Some teens may like that and some may want a more romantized view of war. The topic of the Vietnam war may also appeal to teens because it was one of the first times teens had a role in a war. Teens were fighting it, protesting it and had an opinion about it more than in previous wars.

The Developmental Markers that this book addresses most are Caring, Responsibility, and Interpersonal Competence. The main character in this book cares about his fellow soliders and his family at home who is his first reason for fighting. He wants to financially contribute to them. It also shows a lot of his empathy and ability to make friends with the people in his platoon.

I found these characters very believable because they die, they hurt, they throw up and are scared a lot. They portray the mental effects of the war very well by his inability to sleep and increasing desensitization to death and his situation. When he is out of it for a while, he does not want to go back and in the end he just wants to get out alive and for as many of his friends to get out alive as possible.

I would promote this book to teens who like war stories and action. I would expect more boys to like it than girls. I think it would be good for teens to read because it has action with consequences and so many video games and action movies show action and killing with no consequences.

VOYA codes: 5Q, 3P, S

February 16, 2008

Once again, a young adult author surprises me with a piece of hard hitting fiction transcending the inadequate categorizations that we try to slap on literature. At this point I don't know why I'm still surprised when I pick up a YA book and it blows me away with its authenticity and depth, but it keeps happening.

Fallen Angels is a quick read. Once I started rolling on it, I finished it in a few hours. The plotline is standard, though the fluctuation between mundane and boring to hellish and violent in the various scenes does a nice job of reflecting what I've been told about service in Vietnam. The book touches on some of the underlying issues of race in Vietnam, but I'd actually probably have preferred a little heavier exploration of the racial tensions. It's definitely present and explored, but it doesn't end up playing any sort of critical role in the storyline. Maybe that's a good thing, but I just kept expecting it to play into the plot somehow (like with the squad fragging the racist Sgt).

The book captures the bond that springs up between these young men (boys really) in time of war. I believe this to be the novel's strongest point. The characters in the squad move frenetically from adolescent snapping to displays of loyalty to surprising shows of love and affection and back again in what I feel is probably a realistic depiction of the ties that develop between a band of brothers in combat, which seems to bring out both the best and worst of us as humans.

July 31, 2023

A racist war from the perspective of a young and poor black soldier and his friends used as pawns for striving whites clawing for promotion. Myers story gives us a lot in just a couple of hundred pages about Perry’s life back home, his innocence and immaturity, the brutality of war, the lies and politics of the official stories being told, and how he copes. Just barely. Well done, taking away the glory of war, and probably truthfully telling what any young person should expect if they sign on for soldiering during active wartime.

August 25, 2023

4.5 stars rounded down to four.

You'd be hard pressed nowadays to find anyone who will admit that they thought the Vietnam War was a good idea back when it was going on; they're few and far between. (It'll be just like 10 years from now when you won't be able to find anyone who will admit that they thought the COVID response was a good plan.) This book showcases what a cluster fuck it was for the boots on the ground, both on our side and for the Congs. I'm pretty sure if I had been around back then I would've been a hawk. Later in life I would confess that I supported it, but concede that it was mishandled and that we were too involved. The French were in there first, we went in as advisors to help them and the South Vietnamese get organized. If it had stayed that way, we might've been okay. Then the French pulled out when things got too tough (big surprise), but we stayed. And then we started supplying a lot of men to fight a war that wasn't ours to fight. Check the history books and you'll see that this almost never works out well for any country. Soldiers fighting another country's war just aren't as motivated as they would be if there was a national interest or personal stake. Just because we were kind of successful with it in Korea, we figured that we did it before and we could do it again. Maybe lightning could strike twice. Alas, it didn't. But don't take my word for it. Let Professor Terguson explain it to you.

Anyway, the goals for this kind of war are usually noble. This makes wars easy to get into, but extremely difficult to get out of, and once you're in it, there are usually no good options left; every single decision is going to have major cons going along with it. I'm all for containing communism (or even outright eliminating it) which was the goal in Nam. For a more recent example, consider Iraq. The world is much better off without Saddam Hussein; everyone in the intelligence community all over the world was convinced he had WMDs and he did nothing to make it look like he didn't have them, but once we were there and couldn't find them, we had to hang out until the Iraqi allies got their shit together. Then we left, and it didn't work out very well what with those ISIS assholes rolling through a few years later, and we were back again for a bit. Al-Qaida still exists, though it's presently no longer a major player in terrorist circles. The Taliban in Afghanistan needed to go due to their terrorist connections, but they just hung out in caves for a generation until we left, then we saw the most botched withdrawal in US history.

All of these, when they were over, left everyone scratching their heads and wondering what the hell was the point of it all? Communism took over South Vietnam a couple of years after the fact. Iraq was a mess again a couple of years after the fact. And Afghanistan fell to the enemy before we were even gone! But does that mean we should've done nothing? I don't know. Hindsight is always 20/20, and Monday morning quarterbacks will always tell you that if they were in charge they would've handled everything better, but I don't pay any attention to them because they're all insecure, self-important, fucking shitheads who couldn't make a decision of any kind in the moment if their lives depended on it because they have neither the fortitude nor honor to accept responsibility for any action that might leave them in a bad light. They're unwilling to take that chance, though they're more than happy to tell you where you screwed up, and they give credence to Holden Caulfield's worldview that everybody is a damn phony...

I seem to have gone off a bit. Where was I? Oh yeah. Do we or don't we with wars? I can see some of the alternatives being pretty ghastly if we had done nothing. A lot of terrorist plots planned for American soil were foiled due to our involvement in these wars. Was it worth the cost? Everybody will have a different answer for that one.

Enough of that. What about the book? Our main character, 17-year-old Perry, volunteers for the army in 1967. Word is the war will be over soon due to the Paris peace talks, but little did anyone know that the Tet offensive was right around the corner and he and his pals were stuck in the middle of it. Even though it's a fictional story, this book shows the whole picture of what went on over there for the common soldier, much like The Red Badge of Courage, though this is a better book in my opinion because it came across as more realistic. It shows some successful actions, some complete what-the-blue-fuck moments, and everything in between. Sometimes their equipment didn't work, or someone had accidentally set up a trap facing the wrong way so it would fire at the squad instead of at the enemy. (They lucked out with that one when one of the Vietcongs snuck up to it in the dark and turned it around, thinking he was going to be aiming it back at our side but instead turned it against his own people, then set the thing off.) Sometimes they got orders to go to one place but got dropped off at another, or they weren't picked up at all because the maneuver had been called off but nobody bothered to tell them. Sometimes they just sat around for days, shooting the shit and playing checkers or volleyball. Then they'd go out on patrol and either see nothing, or get into a skirmish where they cleaned out Charlie, or got their asses handed to them because they were suddenly facing about 1,000 men when they were expecting 10. Those that made it back to base then went back to the old routine which is summed up perfectly in this quote: "We spent another day lying around. It seemed to be what the war was about. Hours of boredom, seconds of terror."

A lot of people died. Several could've lived a bit longer if they hadn't had bad information or bad leadership due to egos in the command chain or officers with a personal motive that superseded what was best for the team. The Vietcong had the same trouble, it seems, though we don't get anything from their point of view since Perry is the narrator. Sometimes it seemed like they were up against soldiers as inept as 5 O'Clock Charlie, but other times the Congs were much more efficient. Like I said before, the whole thing was a cluster for everyone involved from start to finish.

I enjoyed reading about the interactions between the soldiers. I think one reason this feels so true to life (not that I would know since I've never been in the service) is due to Myers having been in the army himself, though he missed Korea by a year. A lot of Perry's background matches Myers' biography, such as growing up in Harlem, joining the army at 17, being a decent writer, etc. Myers also addresses racism in this, but he doesn't do it obnoxiously. He presents a scene, shows us the reactions to it, the characters state how they feel about it sometimes, and that's the end of it. He doesn't pontificate at all, and the reader is allowed to glean from it what he may. This is such a breath of fresh air in a world supersaturated with new books, articles, stories, news items, op-eds, blog posts, podcasts, videos, etc. that go out of their way to overtly moralize on the matter and tell the readers/viewers how they should feel about it. I felt bad for some of the racism the characters had to endure, but I wasn't told I needed to. E.G.: One of the new sergeants kept putting the black people in his squad in positions most likely to be attacked first. This is pretty shitty. Other examples are wryly amusing. Take this scene where Lobel is telling Perry that the whole war ought to be a movie and they the characters. Perry:

“Don’t you know what role you’re playing?”

“No, not for sure. You know what role you’re playing?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “What roles you got?”

“The role you got to stay away from is the role of the good black guy who everybody thinks is a coward and then gets killed saving everybody else. That’s a bummer. You can’t be the romantic lead.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t have a girlfriend, you just said so.”

“I met a nurse on the plane coming over here.”

“White or black?”

“White.”

“No good, then it becomes one of those noble flicks about interracial love, and they kill you off at the end so they can show it in Georgia.”

"Shit."

That bit of profanity brings up my next bit. I have this on my "young adult" shelf because it reads like a young adult novel as far as sentence structure, syntax, and whatnot, and it's targeted specifically for the young adult range. Hell, I got this in seventh grade because it was in our Schoolastic book club catalog sheet for the month, and my reading teacher, Mrs. Newman, even pointed it out to the class and gave it a plug. However, she said our parents had to sign an extra permission slip because it was graphic and had a lot of profanity in it. My mother looked into it and said I could get it. Now, me being the naive, innocent dork I was, I wanted it only for the naughty cuss words in it, so when it came in I glanced through it, saw a bunch of shits, and fucks, and faggots among other things, and I was all like "oooooh, really bad words in a book!" (I had seen a couple of shits in a Judy Blume book, but this took it to a whole 'nother level hitherto unseen by my virgin eyes.) Then I put it on my shelf, and there it stayed for the next 31 years until last week. (Well, on various shelves as it traveled around with me from home to home whenever I moved.) It's a shame I waited so long to read it because, in the words of Tony the Tiger, it was grrrrrreat!

This is pretty graphic and deals with some sensitive subject matter such as realistic depictions of war, violence, profanity, sexual content (no outright depictions of sex or masturbating, though it was discussed), drugs, drinking, (I reckon smoking cigarettes would be added as a trigger nowadays), racism, and late teens/early 20-somethings behaving and talking like late teens/early 20-somethings are wont to do. At one point, one character "was leaning against a tree to take a leak. He peed all over his pants. 'The next time I join a war I’m going to get circumcised first,' he said." This is crude, but it's also perfect. It's exactly how a soldier would behave and talk. In fact, I can't praise the depiction of the camaraderie between all the characters in this enough. It could not have been handled better, young adult novel or not.

This book has always been on the list of 100 most frequently challenged/banned books since 1990, and it's been in the top ten at least three times, peaking at two and five in 2004 and 2003 respectively. (The Iraq War was just kicking off then. Coincidence? I think not.) But this is nothing young teens can't handle... Well, most young teens, meaning those a little more mature than I was at that age. I don't believe I would've been traumatized if I had bothered to read the book back then, but I had more important things to do after just looking for the cuss words like going to the arcade or video rental store.

Two other items of note: Camp Lejeune is mentioned. I wouldn't have noticed this a few months ago, but it caught my eye seeing as how it's on TV all the time due to a contaminated water thing that was going on for three and a half decades, and if you were there during that time and you've suffered anything between a hangnail and death ever in life since then (a rather wide range of afflictions if you ask me), then one of several class-action law firms is going to be able to get you some money! (Probably around $1.67, give or a take a few cents. That's how most of these things usually play out, though I expect the law firms involved will net millions.) 1967 falls squarely in the time of the bad water, so if the soldiers who came from there hadn't died quickly in Nam, they apparently would've died slowly after. Thank God for small mercies.

Petersburg, VA is also mentioned by two characters who had been there. I mention that only because that's just down the road from me, but it's fallen on some reeeeeaaaaally bad times the past couple of decades, and I only go there now if I'm willing to run the risk of getting shot, though I don't think it's as dangerous as Nam was during the war.

If you want a good book about a soldier's life during one of America's saddest and most disappointing wars, then this will fit the bill.

April 20, 2011

Walter Dean Myers has been writing YA, gritty, urban fiction for a long time and he is very, very good at it. He writes boy books for boys with African-American protagonists. I picked up a special anniversary edition of Fallen Angels last week while I was at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver because I’d read Lockdown, his 2010 release, and loved it and the subject matter – the Vietnam War – interested me. I can still remember sitting around a table in the cafeteria in ninth grade talking to my friends about what we’d do if they started the draft again. In 1975 the Vietnam War ended but it seemed like a close call for me and my brother who was a year older. My father served in WWII – step-father and father-in-law in Korea. A great-uncle was one of the first soldiers to liberate a concentration camp. Anyone who saw combat rarely talked about it. Fallen Angels perfectly captures the reason why. Fallen Angels was originally published in 1988 and is a horrific account of the Vietnam War froma 17-year old African-American boy from Harlem’s perspective. Richie Perry’s first person, grunt’s eye view is highly compelling and perfectly describes the horror and chaos of both firefights and the psychological impact of the war on American soldiers.

Before I read this book I thought The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, was the best book I’d read on the Vietnam War but this one tops it. It in no way glorifies war and it’s parallel to today’s wars in Iran and Iraq is frightening. The erosion of the soldier’s nerves as the story builds and they see more and more action, is handled well as is the insight into why we were at war then and what each character wanted out of being there. The action is visceral. The ending is haunting.

This is not an easy read as the violence is realistic and explicit as is the language, but it is an important and cautionary one.

February 14, 2012

I thought that Fallen Angels was one of the best books that ive ever read. It really shows the life in vitnam and what they really had to go threw. I would give it 5 star rating. I would also recomend this book to anyone that likes war books.

February 29, 2008

Walter Dean Myers wrote the book Fallen Angels. It is about America and the Vietnam War. Well as said by the main character in the book, Richie Perry. He goes through a lot of changes and sees some of his good friends die in battle fighting for a cause that no one could agree upon. The book has 4 other main characters, Lobel, Johnson, Brunner, and Peewee. The book starts off talking about the experiences of Perry while he is serving in Vietnam. His best friend, Peewee becomes instant friends with each other when they meet in the barracks. Peewee helps Perry by standing up for him during several disputes. Peewee and Perry wake up the next morning and find out that they are to go on patrol in order to search out and destroy any Vîet Công soldiers that they encounter. The patrol lasts for a few hours and Peewee and Perry are just about to camp, when a mutual friend of Peewee and Perry drops out of formation for a second and steps on a land mine, killing him instantly. Perry is so upset by this and needs Peewee to help him talk out his feelings of grief for the loss of the friend. Peewee and Perry have a few days to rest, because they have a weekend pass and it grants them 48 hours of freedom. They go to Saigon and have a few drinks and generally have fun, before they have to report back to their unit, which is stationed in the northern highlands of South Vietnam. When they return, they are happy that they made good use of their weekend passes in Saigon.

The next day, Peewee and Perry are sent on another patrol, but this time they are sent in by helicopter. They are sent to an area known to have active Vîet Công troops in the vicinity. It does not take long for the patrol to run into a huge unit of Vîet Công in a rice paddy. They end up getting into a firefight for their very lives. Perry and Peewee shoot a few Vîet Công soldiers, before the firefight ends in a draw, with neither side gaining a clear victory. The toll for the unit is 2 dead out of a 10 man unit, including one of Perry's friends. When the troops are taken back to camp, Peewee and Perry talk about the experiences that they have gained from the firefight that they had with the Vîet Công soldiers and what was going through their minds at the time of the firefight. A few days later, Peewee, Perry, and a few other soldiers are sent out in a patrol to sweep out Vîet Công positions on a hill that overlooks the American camp. The patrol that is sent out is so badly organized that when it meets a Vîet Công patrol, the entire unit falls apart and Peewee and Perry find themselves on the hill, with none of their comrades in sight. Peewee and Perry hear something and hide in a small cave, hoping to evade capture. A Vîet Công soldier stands above looking around for the American servicemen. Peewee and Perry grab the enemy soldier, and kill him, to make sure that he does not give away their position. Peewee and Perry then try to get back to camp, but Peewee is wounded as a Vîet Công soldier finds them. A few hours later, Peewee and Perry make it back to camp and Peewee is treated for his wounds at the medic station. The story then summarizes the last few months of Peewee and Perry's service in Vietnam before they are sent home on a plane to the United States.

March 21, 2014

War. Many think it is just a game. But to the men and women fighting, it is a living hell. U.S.A., 1960's, Perry is drafted into the U.S. Military, and sent to the front-line in Vietnam. Perry is a young African-American man, working towards getting to college. Perry's family lives in Harlem, whom have a military background. Perry never wanted to go into the military, his mother mainly the reason. The draft got him to go, of course right to the front-line. Facing a new group of friends, Perry learns of war stories from them, being there for a year or two. Perry soon learns of the horrors of war, and faces many Vietcong along the rice fields, and many dead comrades. Having many a guts and dirt sprinkled, almost in slow motion, in his face. Almost dying multiple times, Perry has hardened into a soldier not fazed by most things. Getting multiple diseases from the jungles of Vietnam, including dysentery, Perry learns the “war” is not all it lives up to be. Perry finally realizes that this war is useless, and wants to get his year of service over with and leave back to the states. After seeing some of his friends get killed, Perry tries his hardest to stay alive. Eventually getting home, Perry tells of his story, and settles down. Through all of the hardships and death, Perry has seen it all.

I would recommend this book to males in their late teens to adults, because of the language and tone of the book. The book describes most of the deaths in great detail, so discretion is advised. I would most definitely recommend this book to most of my friends, and is really well written.

March 5, 2013

Wow. Just...wow. Walter Dean Myers accomplishes the high-wire task of writing about war for a younger audience with all its attendant boredoms, brutalities, and nightmares while making the telling unnervingly easy to comprehend and the characters too easy to identify and sympathize with. Myers shows us the Vietnam war through the eyes of Perry, a young man whose enlistment seemed like his best option for a future, until he's actually in country. We are with him whether he's bonding or clashing with his comrades, whether he has some semblance of safety or none whatsoever. In country, Myers shows us, there is no real safety, and no peace, only quiet sometimes, which leaves too much time to think--or, when gunfire erupts and flares are going off and the enemy comes out of the darkness, there's no time to think at all.

I know a book is getting to me when I am afraid for the characters, because those characters are so like real persons who could have lived through the same events in the story. Myers was in the army for several years and dedicates this story to a brother who died during military service, so he knew something about army life and of loss. Both elements present palpably in the story, at times to painful degree.

I have read fiction and seen fictional films about Vietnam before, and this story was one of the most unvarnished and undramatized. If it were less lyrical, if it were framed more autobiographically, I would've taken it for a memoir. Now I want to read more by Myers, starting with Sunrise Over Fallujah.

August 22, 2011

I was rather amazed at how real this book felt. The characters are all entertaining but it's their dialog that feels so real and honest that it draws the reader in. Myers was in Vietnam and, I assume, drew heavily on his own experiences for this book. While it is awful and violent, it isn't overwhelmingly so, often portraying the boredom of sitting around in camp and focusing more on the feelings of the characters rather than their actions. In fact, the mediation between feeling and action is rather nice because it provides a really good look at what was going on in Vietnam and how people were dealing with it. I'm also starting to listen to Sunrise over Fallujah which is a pretty interesting comparison. While the culture and the technology are completely different, with the exception of the M-16's, they are both wars that are trying to be humane- to attack the enemy and spare the civilians, with rather disastrous results. I think that both are an excellent way to understand how the U.S. military works in these "little" wars overseas. Perhaps part of the responsibility of us left at home while these soldiers go out is to be aware of what they are going through and how we allow our country to operate and represent us.

August 8, 2016

I picked up and put down this book several times before I finally forced myself to finish. The thing is, my little brother read this book and loved it. There are very few books Sam can claim to have read that I haven't and that meant I HAD to finish this one. I am not particularly fond of coming of age stories or war books and Fallen Angels is a very realistic story about coming of age in the midst of the Vietnam War. However, despite how much I disliked it while reading it, I find I enjoyed the story. It was realistic and painful to read but it was the sort of painful that means you remember it. This wasn't a forced, sappy sorrow but a look at the rawness and realness of war. The main character, Perry, is really just a teenager without much of a clue about what is going on. The story covers a relatively brief amount of time in his life but it feels like you get to know him quite well. The book looks at racism, patriotism, and fear.

I didn't want to read it but I am glad I did.

Lots of language, sexual commentary, and general reference to bodily functions. I'm kind of surprised Sonlight had it in their curriculum. It is cool that they did.

March 6, 2017

Still involved in the Year of YA at Booklist listening to classics on audio. I won't be writing about all of them, but I thought this exceptional--and wonderfully narrated. Published in 1988, it's the story of Richie Perry, 17, whose dreams of college are dashed so he enlists in the army. It's 1968 and the Paris Peace Talks promise an end to the war--the soldiers keep thinking it will end soon. But it doesn't. Perry was supposed to have a desk job because of a knee injury but instead he's at the front in Vietnam. Lots of details of what it's like--and he's an introspective first person narrator, so we get more than just what happened. This is a timeless story of young men and war. Substitute the jungles for the desert and it likely rings as true today. Or pair it with All Quiet on the Western Front. Not much changes: life is tediouss and dangerous, friends are injured and die, the war is mostly boring but when it's not, it's a nightmare, especially in Nam where Perry almost never sees the enemy, just knows he's there. Authentic characters and realistic language. Thoughtful, haunting, emotionally intense with a you-are-there feel.

January 26, 2018

If you have read the back cover or a brief summary of this book, I'd say you get what you expect. A seventeen year old unfortunately finds himself in the Vietnam War, after being unsure what to do with his life. And to add to this, his mother can't afford to send her son Richie to college. The plot is your typical emotional roller coaster. By that I mean there are connections made between the main character and his peers, but these connections are altered frequently by consequences of war (such as death or being sent away). An emotional roller coaster for both the main character and the reader. I don't know much about the Vietnam War myself, but I'd imagine this book portrays it rather well. There are many good descriptions of different sounds and images found on the battlefield by the author. Moving on, one of the themes in this book is loss of youth and innocence. It is even portrayed in the title, "Fallen Angels". Although for a book based on a war, it's not surprising seeing a theme such as this one show up. In conclusion, I'd recommend the book, especially if you enjoy war-related stories and such. 4/5 Stars.

February 27, 2010

I had trouble getting into this book. I found this a really hard book to get through emotionally. I don't tend to pick up war books (in fact, I've started Sunrise Over Fallujah, also by Walter Dean Myers, about twice and couldn't get past the first ten pages or so), I think because of the inevitability of dying in the book and the notion of soldiers dedicating their lives for something that powers way above them are deciding. That being said, the book was well-written and thoughtful and heart-wrenching and a great read for learning about the Vietnam War (just like So Far from the Bamboo Grove would be an excellent book to read alongside history classes discussing Japanese-Korean history). What I found most compelling was the way Walter Dean Myers portrayed these guys barely out of high school, many of whom joined the army because they didn't really know what else to do, and how the war changed their lives. The book is dedicated to Walter Dean Myer's brother, who died in Vietnam and must have been an incredibly emotional book to write.

April 5, 2020

Hands down the best book I’ve read so far this year. As a teen, I read a lot of Walter Dean Myers books - but mostly ones about basketball because I had hoop dreams of my own. I found a few Walter Dean Myers books in a used bookstore recently and bought them out of nostalgia. But I had never read this one...

...his style of writing is so honest, so relatable, so raw, and so poignant. I was drawn in immediately. I felt emotional throughout the book, as a fellow veteran I understood many of the emotions the characters in the book felt - but not all of them because no one will ever truly know the feeling of what these young men went through in Vietnam.

Not only was this book well-written, but it brought up so many crucial discussion points - religion, politics, war, ethics, racism, homophobia, PTSD, mental health, and love. I wanted to wade in his words for longer than I did as I read, but I was too anxious to get to the next page. I will have to reread in time to make sure I truly savored the experience.

August 31, 2021

This is a powerful book that graphically shows the horrors of war and raw human emotions through the eyes of a soldier who is very believable. Characters are well developed. Discussion of military specifics is mostly right. If I was a librarian, I'd urge teachers and parents to be cautious on who reads this book as the reader needs to be a mature teen who can handle what they read.

October 24, 2023

this was terrible. i had to read it for english and for some reason my teacher thought this was a good book, but IT’S NOT! it was so repetitive. like the same stuff happened the whole book. they went to battle, someone died, blah blah blah.

September 7, 2023

This gives a very really depiction of what being at war is like and all I can say is I’m very grateful for the men and women who volunteer to protect our country and others. It would be nice if everything could be worked out diplomatically but given that will not always be a possibility, I’m thankful for those who give their time and sometimes lives for the rest of us.

July 10, 2024

This was brilliant and devastating. I was amazed by the way Myers ratchets up the tension. I knew Perry was going to survive throughout reading the book; it was hard, but it wasn't a tragedy, wasn't it? But the last war scene was so intense, so overwhelming I wasn't sure. I thought that maybe Perry wasn't going to survive and it was ... devastating. Even the ending was so incredible. The writing was exquisite.

Absolutely amazing and so sad. So devastatingly sad.

January 14, 2022

the story of a soldier's days in Vietnam. It shows the war through the main character's eyes. He is a soldier mostly for economic reasons, not because he has a particular position for or against the war. It details both the boredom and life-threatening action of the Vietnam war. I give it a five-star review.

September 23, 2017

It was a good book, with a good story to tell, but it also felt repetative and slow, but I guess in the case of our main character, slow, was a very good thing indeed.

July 2, 2024

My teenage son loves this book. He listens to books and this one he practically has memorized. And he’s right. It’s gritty, action packed, believable characters. I truly despise the YA market right now, so I won’t insult this book by putting it in that category, since it was written well before the market got captured by all the insanity. Interestingly, it centers the perspective of a black 17-year-old kid from the Bronx and all the civil rights era insanity is swirling around the background.

I enjoyed reading this off the heels of rereading O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” Meyers definitely knows how to tell a good war story with compassion and brutal realism from the perspective of the kids we sent over there. It feels real and gets at the “truth” in a way that O’Brien would appreciate.

Anyway, anytime I find a book that appeals to boys I’m all over it and this one comes fully endorsed by a gamer 14-year-old. So there you go. Reports of our boys’ reading antipathy have been greatly exaggerated. They just need something that hooks them.

April 8, 2019

You never know exactly what combat is like until you get there. Would you go knowing friends would be falling all around you? Imagine being in a strange land scared out of your mind. It's hot, muggy, sweaty and bug infested. That's Vietnam. They were thrown in this foreign place with no friendly faces to turn to for comfort.

Perry the main character enlisted in the Army in the late 1960’s and was shipped off the the war in Vietnam. Perry enlisted strait out of high school, because he didn't know what else to do. Perry figured going to the Army was the only option on his table. Perry was sent to war after his basics. He wasn’t really that worried to go into combat, but once he got there he came to realization that war is horrific. Sometimes in life we get ourselves into bad situations. Once his friends started getting picked off he had a whole new perspective on what it means to be in the Army. If you want to see if Perry makes it home you will have to read it. I wanted to read this book because I thought about enlisting but I heard war is is a horrible thing, so this book confirmed my suspicions.

This book takes an acquired taste in literature. If you like action and war books this is a good one. It does paint vivid pictures on how war really is and how it works. It will really make you think about what the veterans have been through. I think this book was written for a younger audience but anyone who is curious about war from a realistic point of view should give it a read.

September 23, 2016

The author of this book has very good description. In the beginning of the book, the main character and his squadron are on a patrol. One of the members doesn't pay attention, and steps on a mine. This is very shocking, because the author says that it was out of no where, the gut just exploded! But one down side is the cussing. Almost on every page there is a cuss word. And it can be really depressing. Half way through the book, the army finds 2 children and there mother. They start to be friendly to the lonely family, and one of the soldiers holds one of the kids up on his soldiers. Then the book got dark. It turns out that the children were suicide bombers. After the first child blew up, and they shot the mom, then they stopped. They looked at the second child as he stood there. At this point, I didn't to read what would happen. But I did. And I hated what happened. I just want to say that there is alot of strong language, but it does add onto this amazing story.

May 29, 2023

I reviewed this book because it is required reading for Freshman English which my son will take next year. I stopped reading a short way in because the subject matter was not only inappropriate for my son, but for myself as well. I think it is a shame because this book seemed to have an easy format to read and a semi-relatable protagonist. I felt like the secondary themes (venereal disease, prostitution, immorality, drugs, etc.) were unnecessary for high school age reading, especially freshman, and irrelevant to the actual idea of what went on over there. Of course those things all happened and sadly were a part of everyday life for the soldiers, but high schoolers don't need to have every detail in order to get the sense of the despair and fright that war was.

September 21, 2014

As silly as it may seem, this book was just a little too real for me. So, in a way, that would indicate the writing is incredibly effective. However, it was painful to read. I hate war, and the story mostly just depressed me. I can't say anything against the writing, only the content.

As an afterthought: I had to read this book for school and I think any time someone told me I HAD to read something my mind immediately decided to not like it. So I should probably read it again by my own choice and see what I think of it now.