My book club book Unbroken is a literary nonfiction categorized book written by Laura Hillenbrand. Written in 2010, this book narrates a World War II biography of survival, resilience, and redemption. The story begins with the most problematic child in town discovering and developing his talent for running. Louie Zamperini was born 1917 in New York as an Italian immigrant’s son, his childhood was bullied and detested until he became an Olympic runner. His dream of winning the Olympics soon crashed when Germany and Japan started World War II, which forced Louie to give up on running and participate in war. During his harsh time in the war, he was captured, tortured, and faced with the fear of death. However, he went past all these situations and ended up unbroken. 

 

This notebook page “Tracking Complexity” on day 3 represents my understanding of the parts that seem familiar and how they happen to connect with parts at the beginning of the story. This further elaborates on the central idea of Louie’s resilience and perseverance established by what he experienced when he was small supports him going through hard situations. I used representations of blue boxes pointing to red boxes, demonstrating how what Louie has been through in his childhood directly impacts his future.

 

This notebook page “Parts that connect” on day 7 illustrates different parts of the book and a central topic or issue that connects the book as a thread of motif. The book centered on issues like injustice, WWII, and endurance, and focuses on how parts of the book that connect to these topics will lead out the central idea or social issue. Issues like endurance and personal dignity then connect back to the central idea of Louie’s perseverance and resilience.

 

Authors use different literary methods to dispose the tone of the story, including describing a descriptive setting. This notebook page “Analyzing descriptive passages” on day 8 shows my understanding on page 129 and how I analyzed for this page to have a meaning in hinting at the central topic of religion and hope. The author uses a sudden change of tone emphasizing the loss of hope and the realize of reality.

As I read further into the book, everything seems to be led with each of the next things happen. This notebook page “Cause and Effect” portrays a plot mindmap illustrating all the connections of events in this book. Cause and Effect can be just one event leading to another, or could be a whole system of consequencing events that may lead to further effects. The book Unbroken has an incredible plot line with a domino of cause and effect. You can clearly see that each event has a foreshadow or sign at the start of the book hinting at the affected events.

Sometimes when you start reading a book, parts don’t seem to connect or make no sense with the content. However, when I gradually reach to the end of the book, those unfitting parts seem to make sense. This notebook page “The Joy of Rereading” on day 10 illustrates a connection at the end of the book about religion and dignity to a part in the middle of the book which seems kind of unrelated (as Louis wasn’t religious). When I was reaching the end of the book, something about Christianity and Louie awakening his religion seemed familiar, I decided to reread a part, then figured out that the parts when God first was mentioned were a foreshadowing of his future religion.