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Old 02-20-2015, 11:12 PM   #27
sun surfer
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Thank you Billi for volunteering for a month and your list of nominations were great. I'll look forward to your next turn when it comes around again.

I appreciated Under Fire but I didn't particularly enjoy it - it was too graphically horrific for me. It’s an important novel but I feel like I already know so much about the horrors of war in general from various sources over the years and when I can and have already imagined similar scenes before in realistic detail, doing it again can feel excessive. Some people may read books like this and not have much of a reaction or may even be titillated; I may be sensitive but reading something like this tends to disturb me and stays in my mind. You may say that my reaction is the point but it’s preaching to the choir in my case.

I should’ve known going in that I might not be apt to enjoy it but as I did enjoy All Quiet on the Western Front and Testament of Youth, I was excited for this to cap off the anniversary year of the start of WWI. Instead, in impact it reminded me more of Black Rain, another book that dwelled on graphic details of war horrors. I’m okay with a bit of realistic horror - All Quiet is a good example. It’s when it feels like an excessive focus that I don’t particularly like it, unless it’s necessarily exposing me to something important that I hadn’t considered before.

I did enjoy many aspects of Under Fire - the authenticity, the realistic dialogue, the vignette style, the glimpse of camp life, the characters’ stories and finding out their hopes and desires.
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