Life's a beach | Giving Shelter | Michael P. Gilbert

Beautifully written | Giving Shelter | Michael P. Gilbert

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	• Giving Shelter Michael P. Gilbert Amazon, 2007 - 8 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Honest View.

This was a very well written view of the war in Iraq. Disturbing, yet utterly true.

Knowing someone who has been to Iraq twice now, I can say the author does a great job in describing the emotions and experiences faced by our troops.

The writing is clear, crisp, and at times very poetic. The characters are well drawn.

I really enjoyed this piece and look forward to reading the rest when it's published.

Life's a beach

....and sometimes it's just miles and miles of sand.

This excerpt tells the story of a surfer dude who joins the Marines, survives boot camp, and then gets sent to Iraq via Kuwait.

The rather irreverent Marine shares his experiences of wearing ill-advised, ill-fitting, heavy and ugly protective clothing while dodging snipers and making like a sardine in the cast-iron interior of their transport vehicles.

From rousing speeches to invisible weapons of mass destruction, this story, although fictional, feels real enough for the sand to seep through the pages.

I'd be very interested in seeing how this one ends. Rated: 4.5 stars

Note: This review is based on the excerpt submitted for the Amazon
Breakthrough Novel Award, and awarded a place in the Top 100.

Amanda Richards, February 19, 2008

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Beautifully written

I hesitated to read Michael P. Gilbert's Giving Shelter because of this comment in an official review: "It is as one would expect a soldier's journal to be, somewhat vulgar, short sentences, cynical asides, verbal middle finger to the higher-ups. Is that enough for a novel? There is too much of the real soldier's journal here to be a convincing novel."

With respect, I completely disagree with this comment. Gilbert's writing is beautiful! Like the waves he describes in the opening scene the sentences rise and fall with a comforting rhythm. Sometimes they are long and full of intelligent and wonderful words. Then they are short and philosophical. And then suddenly they come at you like bullets - full of curses and exclamation points. This is writing that evokes the action of the scene.

As a fellow top 100 semi-finalist I can say without reservation that if Gilbert's manuscript is consistent with this excerpt it deserves to go even further in this competition.

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Riding the waves

He says the worst part of war is waiting...waiting packed in a trac like sardines, smelling each other, but grateful for the padding of the other people because it prevented bumping around...

And--what was the war really about? They didn't find the weapons of mass destruction that sent them into Iraq. And he's angry about that--angry because bad intelligence cost soldiers' lives:

"But what really ### me off was that every one of us had to hump extra gear because they got it wrong. Had to wear layers of protective clothing and sweat more, and in that ### desert more than a few of us went down as heat casualties because of it."

What the war was really about--for him, and for others in his platoon was 'giving shelter':

"The men from that village walked into the night for one reason, for shelter. That's right, it's that simple. Shelter. Not their own, they were like you-unselfish-but shelter for the ones they loved...."

He and the Marines in his platoon fought for the Iraqis shelter and for that of the American people as well. A good sound reason and one the whole Marine platoon could call out a healthy "OORAH" when their CO gave them the pep talk.

Yes, this is a fictional account, but Michael P. Gilbert really does have a Marine voice down solid. His guy's a decent person, the kind of person who'd lay his life down to 'give shelter' for strangers and for the people he cared about, too.

The excerpt is well-written and well worth a read. The only nit this reviewer could pick is sound 'bytes'. Congratulations to Mr. Gilbert on his ABNA Top 100 and I wish him much success with his future.

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Gripping War Novel Not for the Feint of Heart

Giving Shelter is a story about the realities of war, as seen through the eyes of a Marine who has been on the front lines. It offers a compelling look at what it means to be a soldier in a much-debated war.

Michael P. Gilbert writes with such authority that the book's details ring absolutely true. His descriptions paint a vivid picture of war-torn Iraq; I felt as if it was me out there sweating in the desert heat, my heart pounding with fear. Gilbert also knows how to write solid action scenes and realistic dialogue. Thus, the story is already gripping, despite the fact that an actual plot has yet to emerge.

Giving Shelter is not for the feint of heart - it's honest and angry, so the language and details are unsparing. For this reason alone, I wouldn't finish reading it, but I'm sure fans of war fiction will devour it completely.

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Giving Shelter is the fictional war journal of Brenden Cary Rydes, a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps. Seventeen years old during the initial Iraq invasion, Rydes returns to the States only to learn that the job in Iraq is not finished. Encouraged by two writers from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rydes journals his experiences during the second deployment, which culminates in the battle of Fallujah during OIF II.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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