The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers is the best book I've read this year, and war books are not my cup of tea. The Yellow Birds follows a soldier named Bartle and his experiences of terror in the Gulf War while trying to protect a younger soldier named Murph, while both men are under Sgt. Sterling, a man made for war. Kevin Powers's writing style is powerful. I loved his writing! He made me feel every bit of the terror and dissociation from a broken war. It reminded me a lot of Tim O'Brien in The Things They Carried and also in Crane's Red Badge of Courage. But, unlike O'Brien and Crane, the lyrical quality of Power's words mesmerized me, and near the end of this novel, they devastated me. I found myself crying at the end of this book in a Walgreens parking lot. This book had a profound effect on me, and I encourage others to read it.
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