I was never a fan of assigned reading at school, and going into AP lang, I had no interest in reading the crucible. Previously I read of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451, but none of them moved me the same way that The Things They Carried did. This book is nearly 233 pages of raw emotions, encompassing the good, bad, and ugly, of war, but underneath was a beautifully written story about the importance of stories. I think my favorite chapters were "How to tell a true war story" and "The lives of the dead" because they exemplify this point exactly.
In my first read, I brushed over these two chapters. I thought "How to tell a true war story" was confusing, an "The lives of the dead" seemed a little like a love story, but upon my second read, I made the connection that, a true war story is not the same as a true story, and that's ok. A true war story is supposed to honor the person in the story. Even if it isn't a "true story" it embodies who and what the person in the story is. A true war story is true and false, it's everything and nothing at the same time, and no matter how real or fake these stories are, they hold the legacy of the person who's in the story, and I think there's something beautiful about that.
I've been reflecting on the book for a while and I had to get it out, I'm sure this was obvious to a lot of people but I wanted to gush about how much I loved this book ❤️