At times I laughed. Other times I had tears rolling down my face, snot accumulating as my shoulders shook and I fumbled for the tissues. This is an uncomfortable book. If you want to know what WWII was REALLY like, read this book. In the words of children, soldiers, war correspondents, industrialists, POWs, economists, teenagers, internees, atomic survivors -- it's powerful and sobering and scary and worth every second of time I spent reading it. You'll find conflicting viewpoints and politics, and that's how you know you have the truth.