Everything about the story was interesting and educational
How is story?
Unbroken is a book to be read, and reread and discussed over and over again.Hillenbrand's extremely well researched and massively detailed book tells the story of Louie Zamperini. A man with an interesting personality to begin with, Louie survived ordeals that would have finished most people off.  When it looks like tan incident is the worst thing that could happen to him there is a moment of....But wait!  That wasn't the worst of it and the story is off telling another terrible event.An Olympic runner in 1936 Louie ended up in the Army Air corp as a bombardier over the Pacific during WWII.  When their plane crashed he and 2 other men were in a raft for more than a month.  On land at last Louie was captured by the Japanese and held in work camps for the duration of the war.  Louie's "bring it on" attitude caused his jailers to hate him even more and his punishment was unbelievable.After being freed Louie faced demons for many years until a chance encounter with Billy Graham helped him turn his life around.I found this book to be compelling, endlessly interesting, and fascinating.  I could not stop turning the pages, wanting to see what could possibly happen to Louie next. Everything about the story was interesting and educational while still being extremely readable.  I learned about flying a B24, and details of WWII that I had not learned before.  I read details of the treatment of POWs that I had not known before.I must  ponder  why  Louie survived when so many others didn't.  What part of his upbringing and genetic makeup made him so resilient that he was able to withstand the punishment, thirst, starvation and deprivation that he did?Hillenbrand gives quite a bit of thought to this subject of why the Japanese treated the POWs so badly.  There are many reasons to be considered.  It has been obvious in years past that people put in power over others can become overwhelmed with the desire to prove themselves to their prisoners, turning into monsters that they themselves could hardly recognize.  Something about the Japanese personality made these men fail to understand why the westerners behaved so differently from the Japanese.  In many ways the Japanese were simply following orders and were afraid not to do what they were told.This would be an excellent book for students of history to read, and for reading groups to discuss. 