A review by bethgiven
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar
3.0
This is the true story of the Chilean miners who were trapped underground for sixty-nine days, the story that captivated the whole world. I didn't follow the story when it was happening (though I did hear about it) so this was basically all new to me.
I am going back and forth between three and four stars on this one. On the one hand, I found the story to be incredibly interesting and downright gripping at times. I'd never considered the difficulties these men had to go through, both before and after they'd be reached underground (at first you have to deal with starvation; then you have the long and arduous emotional ordeal) and then before and after they had been brought to the surface (all of these men had to deal with instant celebrity -- and the public scrutiny and judgment that comes with it -- along with PTSD). The rescue efforts were phenomenal. What an amazing story, and the author does a good job in presenting it at a decent pace.
But still, I had a hard time with this book. It might be just that I was reading this during a busy month, but I found it hard to feel connected to any of men -- there were just so many of them, so even though the author was really phenomenal at reminding the reader who was who, I still had a hard time following. It took me several weeks to read this (probably just bad timing) so I had a hard time feeling engaged.
Clean readers: this has more swear words in it than I usually tolerate, including at least a half-dozen instances of the f-word. I learned a couple of new Spanish profanities too. :-/
I am going back and forth between three and four stars on this one. On the one hand, I found the story to be incredibly interesting and downright gripping at times. I'd never considered the difficulties these men had to go through, both before and after they'd be reached underground (at first you have to deal with starvation; then you have the long and arduous emotional ordeal) and then before and after they had been brought to the surface (all of these men had to deal with instant celebrity -- and the public scrutiny and judgment that comes with it -- along with PTSD). The rescue efforts were phenomenal. What an amazing story, and the author does a good job in presenting it at a decent pace.
But still, I had a hard time with this book. It might be just that I was reading this during a busy month, but I found it hard to feel connected to any of men -- there were just so many of them, so even though the author was really phenomenal at reminding the reader who was who, I still had a hard time following. It took me several weeks to read this (probably just bad timing) so I had a hard time feeling engaged.
Clean readers: this has more swear words in it than I usually tolerate, including at least a half-dozen instances of the f-word. I learned a couple of new Spanish profanities too. :-/