I've never come across a fictional telling of The Bay of Pigs Invasion, though, I have read a number of accounts in various nonfiction books. This is an intriguing era of history to explore and I applaud the author for making the venture. 

Men of Light focuses on the men of Brigade 2506 in Cuba as tensions escalate between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Fidel Castro. The men (Manuel Francisco Artime Buesa, José Alfredo Pérez San Román, Ramón J. Ferrer Mena, and Erneido Andrés Oliva González, to name a few) are counting on the aid of the United States, but a last minute decision made by the White House leave the brigade stranded and, essentially, left for dead. 

Reading this, I came to realize just how abbreviated my past reading on this subject has been. Or rather, how much I've forgotten over the years. This book was an interesting way to be reintroduced to the topic and offered a perspective I've not read before — the perspective of the people hurt most by the fiasco. It was also interesting to see both Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy represented at length. For some reason, I'd only expected to see them mentioned in passing.

I would have loved for the book to be longer. There were a lot of names to keep track of and I struggled to differentiate who was who even by the time I'd reached the end. These 100+ pages only scratch the surface. While there was near constant action, it came at the expense of character development. I still enjoyed it and it will inspire further reading, but I would have enjoyed it even more at a slower pace. Because of this, I would also recommend that readers have a baseline of knowledge of the Cuban Missile Crisis to enjoy this book to the fullest.

Above everything else, this book gives a voice and tribute to the Bay of Pigs victims. Once more, I applaud the author for being the one to take on this homage.

Thanks to Reedsy Discovery for providing a free digital copy to read and review.