lovestoread

I am an early to bed, semi-early to rise sort of gal. If my grandfather’s were still alive they would tell you I sleep to mid-day, but that’s only because they both got up at 4 a.m. to milk cows and do farm work. For a book to keep me up late, it has to be good and Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille is very, very good. In fact, as Tony the Tiger would say, it’s GREAT.

Not a quick read

At 855 pages this book isn’t something you breeze through. I am a very fast reader and this one took me awhile. While the size and length of it might daunt some, it was necessary to really develop the characters and explain the complicated story.

Why I liked the book

I was born in 1956 so I remember the Vietnam war as something that was on the nightly news while my parents and my family and I ate supper. While it sounds wierd to think that we sat around a table eating mashed potatoes and biscuits and gravy while body counts and the number of wounded flashed across the screen, that’s just the way it was. My parents were good, caring people but rural Kentucky was a long way from the war and their main interest was in financial survival and raising my brother and myself.

So I grew up aware of the war, hippies, and flower power but for me everything was all as black and white and foreign as the Beatles jumping around on The Ed Sullivan Show on my television screen. There was no color or emotion connected to make it real.

Years later I met and married my husband of 30 years. He is four years older than I am which made him old enough to be drafted at the tail end of the war, but as fate would have it his number never got called. I don’t know if it was my husband’s near miss, or the black and white supper time memories of the war that intrigued me, but when I saw this book about Vietnam I wanted to know more. For those of us who didn’t experience the war or it’s effects first hand, the book painted a picture of a war that still defies understanding.

Ben Tyson

I fell in love with the hero of the story, but not for the reasons you might think. Yes, he was a ladies man and a magnetic character but the thing I loved most about him was he was a man of character. Not a saint, not always a sinner, but someone who ultimately knew right from wrong and wanted to admit his mistakes. We live in a world where people refuse to take responsibility for anything, even parking tickets, so it was refreshing to meet someone like Ben.

Late night reading

One of the best things about the book was the build up. You know what I mean. You are reading and reading and with every page you are getting closer to seeing the bad guys get what’s coming to them. At least I thought that was what was going to happen. So about ten o’clock when I normally turn out the lights and call it a day, I determined I was going to finish the book. In order to do so I had to find a corner of the house where it was quiet (I can’t think when there is noise) and where I could have enough light to see. You would think that wouldn’t be hard, after all I live in a fairly large house but I ended up in the guest bathroom, on the toilet (seat down) reading until one in the morning. Picture if you will (or if you want to) me turning page after page…alone in the bathroom with just Ben Tyson and his court martial trial. That’s one of the perks of reading. You can do so in your jammies on the john and no one is the wiser.

Whatever you think you think about the Vietnam war there’s a good chance you will think differently (or at least in more depth) after you read this book.

DeMille

What can I say about Nelson DeMille? A friend of mine who is as addicted to reading as I am gave me one of his books and I haven’t stop reading him since then. Word of Honor was actually first published in 1985. My children were all young during the 80’s and as a result my reading list then consisted of Dr. Seuss books and books about dogs. Now that I can breathe again (and read again) I have found all kinds of books that have just been waiting for me to pick them up and delve into.

If you are up at night and can’t sleep, pick up a book. But if you want to go back to sleep anytime soon, don’t start Word of Honor. You might end up awake all night.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS