"Best-selling author Mary Roach explores the science of keeping human beings intact, awake, sane, uninfected, and uninfested in the bizarre and extreme circumstances of war.
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, noise—and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the U.S. Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of U.S. Army Natick Labs and learns why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemmonier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security. Roach samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again."
That description pretty much covers it! Mary Roach has nailed it again with another fascinating novel about a subject you didn't know you didn't know much about. Many who know me are aware that I give credit to Mary Roach for sparking my interest in Human Anatomy in a big way after reading her first best-selling novel, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Now look at me! Finishing up PT school and soon to be making my living off of studying anatomy and movement. For that reason I will always pick up and read whatever this author shells out. Mary Roach's writing style is about as tongue-in-cheek as it gets which allows for her books dripping in scientific fact and at times somewhat dry data to be page turners. This book brought to light things I had never considered about soldiers and our veterans that I think are actually quite important bits of information for all of us to be aware of. I commend Mary Roach for taking on such a challenging topic and writing about various topics both interestingly and respectfully. I recommend this book to anyone interested in science, combat, and human reactions, all with a little bit of humor thrown in, of course.
Check out my other Steph Reads posts!
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Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
I Didn't Come Here to Make Friends by Courtney Robertson
Golden Son by Pierce Brown
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Red Rising by Pierce Brown
The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks
Someday Someday Maybe by Lauren Graham
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
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What Alice Forgot by Lianne Moriarty
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Splintered by AG Howard
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