If they talk about dying for principles that are bigger than life you say mister you're a liar. Nothing is bigger than life. There's nothing noble in death. What's noble about lying in the ground and rotting? What's noble about never seeing the sunshine again? A few weeks ago I was in a weird mood and decided to peruse a Goodreads list called The Most Disturbing Books Ever Written. I then went on to read Push (a truly horrific, revolting book that I cannot unsee for the life of me) and this o...

Here's a list of words that describe this book:        Gruesome, grotesque, morbid,            uncomfortable, dark,         unhinged, horrific, horrible, appalling,          grisly, horrendous, grim,       unnatural, and ghoulish Here's a list of emotions that You will feel while reading this book:      Sad, mad, bitter, dismal, pessimistic,      somber, angry, enraged, lost,      and confused. Johnny got his Gun is an amazing work of fiction. Joe Bonham takes a shell in World War One and become...

I thought this was OK. The setting is an American soldier, Joe Bonham, in a military hospital during WWI. While on the front, an artillery attack blew off his limbs and left him blind, deaf, and mute. This is all experienced through Joe's perspective as he slips in and out of his present-day reality, war memories, and various memories from childhood and adolescence. Overall the book read quickly but I had to pay attention as reality and dream intertwined without warning. I would describe the wri...

Two days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Johnny Got His Gun, one of the greatest anti-war novels ever, was first published. And when I think beyond WW2, and beyond Vietnam, right up to more recent wars and those who have been blown to bits, or living with without limbs, from serving in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the latest casualty of war out there somewhere right now, then this novel is depressingly timely, and probably always will be. Because let's face it, when are we ...

Qué mal me sabe otorgarle a este libro solo tres estrellas. Y no solo por el tema antibelicista, del que estaba previamente más que convencido, aunque con ciertas objeciones en relación a la posición concreta que aquí se adopta, sino fundamentalmente por el propio autor, al que admiro por su trabajo cinematográfico y, sobre todo, por la actitud que mantuvo durante toda su vida y, concretamente, durante aquellos horribles y vergonzosos años de la caza de brujas que emprendió el Comité de Activida...

Manufacturing TasteThe story of this story is probably its most interesting part. The idea for it started as a Canadian news article recounting a royal visit to a Canadian quadriplegic soldier who had been injured in World War I. Twenty years later Trumbo turned this idea into a book about an American soldier that included much autobiographical material. Seventy-five years after that, Larry Brown in his Dirty War of 2012 transformed it yet again into a hospital dialogue between two veterans of t...

This novel about an American soldier who was severely wounded while fighting in World War I was so disturbing it took me several tries to get through it.The novel is told in a stream of consciousness, with soldier Joe drifting in and out of memories of his parents, of girlfriends, of more innocent days. He slowly realizes that he has no arms, no legs and no face, and his cries are gut-wrenching. I listened to this book on audio, and the performance by William Dufris was so affecting that I had t...

I simply have to read this book. It, including its author, has been cussed by Ann Coulter on her latest blog post. That is recommendation enough for me!***Devastating read! Review coming.***Detailed ReviewThis must be the most disturbing war novel that I have read – if not the most disturbing novel EVER. The reader is forced by the author to spend the whole length of time he reads this book inside the head of his protagonist. Why? Because the protagonist is an injured soldier, who has lost his l...

I read this book during my lunch breaks at the cafe of Barnes & Noble in Chelsea, NYC. I think I finished it in five sittings, with great big tears rolling down my face. While everybody around me was busy quaffing scalding hot lattes, I was trying to muffle the sounds of my agonized weeping into my scarf. Luckily, this is not seen as strange behavior in Manhattan, so I was able to finish the book unmolested. Johnny Got His Gun sounds like it was written during the early stages of the Vietnam...

A scathing anti-war novel, in which the main character is one of the profoundly, hopelessly wounded, the human wrecks of war.

It is told in the first person, by the voice of a person now voiceless, trapped in his mutilated body, confined to his hospital bed, and--as this person virtually unable to communicate communicates with the reader, telling us his story--we come to realize the true cost--and futility--of war.

This is an angry, honest book. Thoroughly memorable.