Helpful Score: 3
This is a wonderful book. Watch the movie after you read the book as the book is more involved and better. A great post Viet Nam America tale. Strong characters and memorable. A great writer!! In the current issue of Paste Magazine this book is chosen as the best in classic fiction for it's era--Viet Nam!
Helpful Score: 2
By award winning author Bobbie Ann Mason. A moving story of a young woman (Sam Hughes)whose father was killed in Vietnam before she was born. A glimpse into the reality of war.
Helpful Score: 1
Great characters...one of those nice, intimate books that takes place over a couple of days.
I enjoyed this book very much. I appreciate a strong female author :)
Sam Hughes, whose father was killed in Vietnam, lives in rural Kentucky with her uncle Emmett, a veteran whom she suspects is suffering from exposure to Agent Orange. Sam is a typical teenager, trying to choose a college, anticipating a new job at the local Burger Boy, sharing intimacies with her friend Dawn, breaking up with her high school boyfriend, and dealing with her feelings for Tom, one of Emmett's buddies. Sam feels that her life is bound to the war in Vietnam and becomes obsessed with the idea because of the reluctance of her family and Tom to talk about it. Her father's diary finally provides the insight she seeksinsight she cannot accept until she has visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. In Country is both a powerful and touching novel of America that analyzes the impact of the 1960s on the culture of the 1980s and a beautiful portrayal of an often forgotten area of the country. Essential for adult and YA collections.
LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW
LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW
This book really spoke to the heart of a person who was a 18 yr old at the time of the Vietnam War. It is fiction...but not to the heart of this person who lost 11 friends in Vietnam.
This is the story of a young woman whose father died in the Vietnam War before she was born. Her quest to learn more about her father, other veterans, and the psychological and moral fallout allows the heart to find some peace. The book was made in to a movie...many of the reviews said it not only help attain personal reconciliation, but national reconciliation.
This is the story of a young woman whose father died in the Vietnam War before she was born. Her quest to learn more about her father, other veterans, and the psychological and moral fallout allows the heart to find some peace. The book was made in to a movie...many of the reviews said it not only help attain personal reconciliation, but national reconciliation.
a search for identity
I enjoyed this story even though it was sad to think of this young girl who never knew her father. I have tried to imagine what it was like at war myself but she also wanted to be able to picture what her father experienced. Sam (Samantha) is 17 and she has been asking everyone about Vietnam but no one wants to tell her anything. She gets books from the library but with all the technical language and confusing names she doesn't learn much and still cant picture it. She wants to know about Agent Orange and wonders if her uncle Emmett was exposed to it. He has bad pimples on his face and neck and she wants him to see a doctor. She worries he might have cancer from it. He wont get a job or a girlfriend and Sam wants him to live more. Eventually she learns more about the war and her father but she doesn't like what she learned.
Some parts of the book were a bit funny and some where pretty strange, like the dream she had about having a baby. I'm glad I decided to read this even though it is not my usual type of book. I only wish the book told whether Emmett ever did get tested for Agent Orange and the result. Now I'm going to wonder forever.
Some parts of the book were a bit funny and some where pretty strange, like the dream she had about having a baby. I'm glad I decided to read this even though it is not my usual type of book. I only wish the book told whether Emmett ever did get tested for Agent Orange and the result. Now I'm going to wonder forever.
This is one of my favorite books! I found myself with an extra copy and thought I'd share it with someone.
