A review by zhelana
Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point by David Lipsky

informative medium-paced

3.75

This was a very interesting look at life at West Point around the turn of the century. It actually had me pretty interested in some of the cadets' lives and whether they would make it through the four years but good grief, David Lipsky has no sense of how to organize his thoughts. PT tests show up at all sorts of different random places, usually with Rash failing yet another one. Basic Training comes at the beginning of the second chapter, which doesn't sound bad except that you're already a quarter through the book at the point there's a second chapter! You've gone through an entire year and then you hit the bit about how kids go from civilians to cadets? It's so random, like why is it there, and not at the beginning of the book? And then September 11th happens, and it is barely mentioned. Like, this is surely the biggest thing to happen to the military during the 4 years those kids are there, and yet it gets two pages of air time in this book. Also, Lipsky explains some terminology unique to the military at the beginning of the book, but by the end of it he's using it so familiarly and I couldn't remember what much of it meant so I often had entire paragraphs I was reading going "WTF does this even meant?" So not a great book but a good book.