Fallen Angels

Really good book

This is one of my favorite books that is now mine in hard cover. It's an amazing story & for being a used book was in perfect condition still. So looking forward to all the nostalgia this book will bring once I begin reading it again

The book arrived just as advertised. Crisp, clean, fresh pages and smelled brand new. Excited to share this masterpiece with the next generation of young readers!

This was a good book to read. It was an easy read and I would recommend it to the High School level only student beause of the language used by the characters and the grahic war scenes in the book. The relationships that develop through the characters is a reason to want to read it. If you have some historical knowledge of that period it would help you understand the setting of the book and events that led each one the characters to arrive at war in Viet Nam. It is a view of war through the eyes of the author. It is well written and it captures the human side of soldiers who are pressed into situations they have no control over. They must grow up quickly in that hostile environment with what survival skills they have. It keeeps your attention.

I remember reading this in high school many many years ago and always told myself I wanted to read it again.... Well all these years later I bought it and read it again and loved it. Great characters and just a wonderful read. Recommended for anyone who is into history or war time.

Excellent book.

This is a fine book for adults and teens alike as it gives an honest description of the actions, feelings and relationships of a young soldier fighting in 1967 VietNam. Without belaboring the point, the author successfully showed complex and long lasting changes that result from this miserable experience. The struggle to remain human and compassionate in a situation that called for detachment, depersonalization and the blunting of feelings was clear. The Viet Nam era was for me, an extremely formative event and it is unfortunate that we have remembered so few of its many lessons. In 1968 "Stars and Sripes" wrote sanitized and erroneous reports of combat, including inflated body counts and the empty hope that the Paris Peace Talks would bring an end to the conflict ~ how similar to the situation out of Iraq today. "They never talk about the cost" is Richie's observation. Will we EVER have the courage to be truthful about the cost of war, present and into the future?

I think it was cut by a 3 year old with safety scissors. Not worth 10.99. I'm sure the book is good though.

Loved this book! Bought for a diploma exam!! And it was so great to read, easy to get into, would buy again if I had too! :)

This is not a classic like 'All Quiet on the Western Front' or 'War and Peace,' but it is worth reading, as it gives the impression of an accurate picture of what happened in Vietnam to many soldiers. The Point of View is consistent and captures the feel of a seventeen-year-old. It does not particularly glorify the war, and gives some idea of war's horrors while still being accessible to a younger as well as older audience. It is completely believable, and the characters are well-drawn.It is, for me, a little weaker on thematic and emotional impact than I would have liked, but worth 5 stars nonetheless.

One of my favorite reads!

There is hardly a wealth of entertaining and well written Vietnam conflict-era fiction out there, with James Webbs  Fields of Fire , Richard Hermans  The Trash Haulers , and Karl Marlantes  Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War  being three of the few genuinely excellent books out there. So as someone with a great interest in the history of the conflict looking to branch out a little further into fiction exploring it, I was happy to come accross the very highly regarded 'Fallen Angels' by Walter Dean Myers.Now straight away I have to say that Fallen Angels is not the equal of the books I list above. Pretty much all of its characters - a muscular and stoic heavy machine gunner, a wisecracking black G.I with more than a little crazy in him, a fresh 'greenie' just destined to die during his first trip into the boonies, a racist redneck, a Captain looking to secure his next promotion with a casual disregard for the lives of his troops etc - are all tropes of every Vietnam war movie, computer game, book or TV show you will have ever witnessed. Even main protagionist Richie Perry has more than a little in common with the likes of Charlie Sheens Private Chris Taylor - quiet, intelligent, a volunteer and an idealist.Then theres the fact that author Myers tries to cram in as much drama, danger, threat and excitement as he possibly can - which might work for other types of fiction but not for something based in the Vietnam conflict.Its well established by those who fought there, and well known by anyone with any experience of reading the many personal accounts written by survivors - even those who would have been considered as being right in the 'thick of it' - that the life of a 'ground pounder' was generally one consisting of long periods of boredom punctuated by short, intense and terrifying periods of excitement and danger - something that the very best books dealing with the conflict (both fiction and non fiction) not only managed to capture, but they also managed to make the apparant mind numbing mundanity of the average day 'in country' incredibly compelling and gripping of interest. Myers even alludes to this being the case in his writing - but then he proceeds to put protagonist Perry and his buddies through the wringer at almost every turn, ensuring that they endure an experience that doesnt really reflect the experience of the vast number of infantrymen who participated in the conflict.Finally theres the occasional inaccuracy in Myers writing - chief amongst them being repeatedly referring to the M60 machine gun as the '.60 cal machine gun', which is unlikely to bother or perhaps even be noticed by people with a more casual interest in the specifics of the conflict, but will undoubtedly grate against anyone with a sharper eye or a keener interest in the details. Personally I'm of the opinion that if youre going to write a book about a real event in which people died (especially a fairly recent one) you have to get the small details rights just as much as the big ones, but Myers wasnt a Vietnam veteran like other authors such as Marlantes, so perhaps such small mistakes are understandable even if they are annoying.Despite what looks like a laundry list of complaints, Myers does however weave an easy reading, but interesting and entertaining tale that is really made by the main character Perry - the vast majority of the story being told from his perspective and through his internal monologue - his best bud Peewee and the growing relationship between them as these two young men - teenagers in fact - try their best just to get through each day, survive and get home.Youre unlikely to ever find yourself bored reading 'Fallen Angels' despite its faults, and admittedly it is aimed at a teen audience rather someone of my generation (a product of the immediate post-Vietnam world), and whilst it doesnt deserve to be at the top of the pile of Vietnam conflict fiction, it is well deserving of a place in anyones top ten. Fields of FireThe Trash HaulersMatterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

I enjoyed reading Fallen Angels but the format (virtually square) was an awful size to hold