The book In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason provided me with a whole difference and new perspective of the Vietnam War and the people it affected. Aside from being considered a war book, this book can also considered a love story, a story about PTSD, about the effects of war on families, and a coming of age story.
The story focuses mostly on Sam’s life and her relationships. Sam is trying to figure out her own life; trying to figure out she is. She keeps asking her family and other vets about the war and especially her father. Her family has told her so many good things about her father, so she looks up to him. Even though she has learned a lot about her father, she won’t stop. She keeps on looking for more. When she finally learns the truth about her father, through a diary, she sees why her family was trying to shelter her and keep her from the truth. She finds out her father was an alcoholic and had killed a lot of people. When she figures out the truth, she is disappointed but at the same time, glad. This person she had been look up to her whole life turns out to be an alcoholic. This helped her shape up her own life because she had no one to look up to. She was in charge of creating her own life from scratch and be as successful as she wanted.
Mason has decided to include a lot of popular culture references in this book. The main reason why authors reference popular culture in their books is to make it more relatable to younger generations. In this book, however, the music, for example, is put in to show how songs like Bruce Springstein’s Born in the USA, meat a lot to soldiers because it was the only way they were able to feel close to home. Hearing American music gave them feeling of being back home and listening to the radio.
The setting of this book is also very important because it takes place in a town called Hopewell, KY. This is a small town, but the irony is that Sam has these big plans for her life, to get out of this small town. The name of the town is also symbolic because it shows that people living there are all trying to get a better life than they have.
Overall, this was a good book. It wasn’t your typical war novel, but at the same time provided a good deal of information about the war. One thing that most books don’t show, and this did, was how the war effected family members of those soldiers fighting in the war.
The book In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason provided me with a whole different and new perspective of the Vietnam War and the people it affected. Aside from being considered a war book, this book can also considered a love story, a story about PTSD, about the effects of war on families, and a coming of age story.
ReplyDeleteThe story focuses mostly on Sam’s life and her relationships. Sam is trying to figure out her own life; trying to figure out she is. She keeps asking her family and other veterans about the war and especially about her father. Her family has told her so many good things about her father, so she looks up to him. Even though she has learned a lot about her father, she won’t stop. She keeps on looking for more. When she finally learns the truth about her father, through a diary, she sees why her family was trying to shelter her and keep her from the truth. She finds out her father was an alcoholic and had killed a lot of people. When she figures out the truth, she is disappointed but at the same time, glad. This person she had been look up to her whole life turns out to be an alcoholic. This helped her shape up her own life because she had no one to look up to. She was in charge of creating her own life from scratch and be as successful as she wanted.
Mason has decided to include a lot of popular culture references in this book. The main reason why authors reference popular culture in their books is to make it more relatable to younger generations. In this book, however, the music, for example, is put in to show how songs like Bruce Springstein’s Born in the USA, meant a lot to soldiers because it was the only way they were able to feel close to home. Hearing American music gave them feeling of being back home and listening to the radio.
The setting of this book is also very important because it takes place in a town called Hopewell, KY. This is a small town, but the irony is that Sam has these big plans for her life, to get out of this small town. The name of the town is also symbolic because it shows that people living there are all trying to get a better life than they have.
Overall, this was a good book. It wasn’t your typical war novel, but at the same time provided a good deal of information about the war. One thing that most books don’t show, and this did, was how the war affected family members of those soldiers fighting in the war.