This is Laura Hillenbrands second great book right after Sea biscuit. The book takes place in a few places including Hawaii, Japan, and Torrance California. It all starts when Louis is just a little kid in Torrance. He had a bad childhood because he would steal people food, steal alcohol from bootleggers, and he would smoke. Almost everyday he would get beat up at school so his father bought him weights and he could defend himself. His brother Pete saw this and he knew that his broker Louis could be much more than a criminal so he went to the principle and convinced him to let Louis on the track team. He lost his first few races but that all turned around when he stopped smoking and drinking. He started to win race after race breaking numerous school and state records. He signed up for the 1936 Olympic tryouts and he made the American track team. He finished his race coming in third place. In 1939 he signed up to be a Army bombardier and when his time ended he mistakenly signed a contract to go back if they need him. In 1940 he was taking a routine mission looking for a lost plane a few hundred miles off Hawaii were one out of the four engines broke down. The copilot called over the engineer and he turned off the wrong engine. They now only had two working engines and it started getting hard to control the plane. Suddenly they started going down the ocean getting closer and closer and crashed into the cold pacific. They had pulled out life rafts and floated for a record breaking 47 days out on the ocean. When they were out there they had some encounters with planes. On their twenty second day they saw a plane and signaled it over and to Thor surprise it as a Japanese as plane that started shooting at them. On they fortieth day a Japanese warship picked them up and brought them to a place called execution island. There they were humiliated, tortured, and beaten. Overall this book was simply amazing to read and it was impossible to put down. It was was suspenseful, action packed, and filled with emotion. I would recommend this to ages 12+