David's Reviews > Fives and Twenty-Fives

It's hard to review this excellent book, except to say something unhelpful like “It's excellent”. The book is fiction, of course, but since the book was written while the author, an Iraq War veteran, was studying in New Orleans and is about an Iraq War veteran who is studying in New Orleans, it's hard not to conclude that the book is an attempt to put his war experience into a form that is more easily understandable by others (and, possibly, himself). It has certainly accomplished this worthwhile goal. Plus, it's written in a spare and clear manner, which sounds perhaps like faint praise but is meant as high praise.

The hero is always in the situation where he is the most-correctly-behaving last good man in the area. Maybe that might get on some reader's nerves, but in this case I felt the author should be given a break. Most everyone else in this novel is, at best, well-meaning, but often less than well-meaning, especially all of the civilians but also many of his military higher-ups. In one situation, the hero loses his temper at a celebration when some drunken young people set off fireworks near some children. He is then, he feels, treated like sometime of dangerous lunatic by his friends and others for the loss of temper. No one seems to agree with him that drunkards putting children in danger is a bad idea. What was I supposed to make of this? Are people really such idiots? Or does the soldier, suffering from post-service emotional distress, fail to see that at least some people agree with him? I couldn't tell – perhaps that's my shortcoming.

That's all about the book. I'd like to make a short observation about the behavior of the certain bookish critics who sometimes manifest themselves here on Goodreads. It seems that any author or review who expresses an opinion criticizing the soldier ethic or experience, especially in the context of America's recent actions in the Middle East, is likely to get one or more critical response to the opinion – fair enough, it's an exercise in free expression. However, these opinions follow a certain pattern. It is: If you are an author like this one, you get a one-star review. If you follow the link to the reviewers' profile, you find that the reviewers' newly-established profile is set to private, and there is a single review – the one you've just read. Comments here on Goodreads sometimes get the same treatment. It's strange to think that reviewers feel they must cloak themselves in anonymity by setting up a separate private account, presumably with an newly-chosen email (mandatory to establish a Goodreads account, if memory serves) just to state this point of view, or any point of view, for that matter. On the other hand, there could be multiple non-members of Goodreads, browsing reviews, who come onto a review (or comment) that offends them so much that they feel they must, for the first time, set up an account and write an opinion, after which they never are moved to write another one, or even list another book as “read” or “to read”. That doesn't seem right, but it's possible. Anyway, no great conclusion to this observation – just wanted to note that it happens.