Youngblood (Gallagher) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[P]rovides a visceral sense of what young American soldiers experienced during their Iraq deployments—the camaraderie, the fear, the exhaustion and boredom, and the sheer discomfort of being encased in 60 pounds of body armor…in triple-digit heat while keeping an eye out for snipers and roadside bombs…. Mr. Gallagher…writes here with the same verve and humor that made Kaboom such an engaging [memoir], but the story he tells in Youngblood is a tragic one…Mr. Gallagher has a keen reportorial eye, a distinctive voice and an instinctive sympathy for the people he is writing about, and he uses those gifts here to immerse us in his characters's lives. Jack…insinuates himself immediately in the reader's mind, as does his interpreter, Qasim…The Iraqi characters…step briskly off these pages…Mr. Gallagher leaves us with an appreciation of how war and occupation have affected Iraqi families for generations, and how the losses incurred after the 2003 American invasion remain day-to-day realities for the people who live there. With Youngblood, he has written an urgent and deeply moving novel.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times


Showcases the manifold strengths of the author's writing, most prominently a gift for evoking the feel of contemporary soldiering in faraway places.... Evocative and [written with] stirring sympathyfor and surprising friendship with local civilians and soldiers.
Wall Street Journal


While [Gallagher's] nonfiction was visceral, immediate and reportorial, his fiction transforms direct experience into something more layered and complex. Gallagher’s voice is vital, literary and sometimes lyrical...smart, fierce and important.
Washington Post


A vivid and introspective chronicle of Gallagher’s fifteen months in Iraq…. Its aim is simple: to explain what it is like to wage an unconventional war…. Unlike a journalist, whose Heisenberg-like presence inevitably distorts, Gallagher is able to candidly depict the lighter moments of war….  Evocative prose, convincing dialogue, and, especially, telling vignettes of life as an American soldier in Iraq.
New Republic


A powerful fiction debut…a gritty, tragic, realistic look inside the failures of America's invasion and occupation of Iraq told by someone who lived it.
Huffington Post


As funny as it is harrowing.
Entertainment Weekly


[A]bout the futility of keeping the peace in Iraq, where it seems almost impossible to identify friend from foe. [Gallagher] imbues the struggle between Porter and Chambers with a moral heft while never reducing these two powerful characters to mere symbols of a military mission gone terribly wrong.
Publishers Weekly


Never have more veterans expressed the full depth of their war experience by turning to writing, and former U.S. Army captain Gallagher joins their ranks with this debut novel. Even as he anguishes over the U.S. military's cooperation with bloody warlords...Lt. Jack Porter breaks all the rules to help a local sheik's daughter.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Gallagher’s riveting combination of gritty military jargon, sharply drawn characters, and suspenseful story line adds up to one of the best modern war novels since Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam classic, The Things They Carried (1990). Highly recommended.
Booklist


(Starred review.) A complex tale about the Iraq War, intrigue, love, and survival.... A fresh twist on the Iraq War novel adds depth to this burgeoning genre.
Kirkus Reviews