The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea

Junger got it right!

I read this book shortly after it first came out on hard cover, I then reread it several years later. Junger did an excellent job in getting most of the details right. He told it like it was.

I served aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Tamaroa (the cutter that rescued most of the Air National Guard helecopter crew) starting shortly after this event took place, I knew many of the key players ivolved in all that took place. I have met many others that were involved as well. (The Tam's decommissioning ceremony was a very emotional event in 1994).

If you're looking for an acturate portrailal of what could and sometimes does happen on the open sea, this is a good book for you. It's also good for those who have ever wondered about what the U.S Coast Guard and the Air National Guard deal with on a daily basis.

over all an excellent book

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Sebastian Junger is a great author. He was able to describe the

Sebastian Junger is a great author. He was able to describe the theme of the book so well and he nailed every detail. In the beginning of the book I could imagine the scene and even the hint of a harbor smell in the air. Even though the start of the book describes a sad situation, it still is enjoyable to read. There is sadness for the missing of the men when they are gone; there is so much happiness between Bobby and Chris. Gloucester, Massachusetts is described as a rainy and grey area to live in, but there is brightness between Bobby and Chris that lifts up the mood and gives the reader hope and a happy feeling. The book is a true love story. The power of love between the fishermen on the boat and their loved ones on the short is so massive despite their great distant apart. Everyone wants to see their loved ones again. I think that the whole point of this book is to tell the reader that even in the worst of times, there is a bright place. If you’re a reader who likes to know about history, it’s also a great book. Sebastian Junger includes stories about the past that explain how many things began in the main story. On the other hand, the book can get a little boring. Fishing can be an unexciting topic to read about in detail. There was also so much description of the storm that the book was a little slow at times. It was great explanation of the storm just a little too much for my taste. Nevertheless, this is a good book to read because even in the darkest hour, there is a bright spot that lifts you up. Also, it’s hard to find a book with such great description of every detail.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

An Amazing & Unforgettable Read

The Perfect Storm was a gripping and tragic true story of the struggle between man and strong elements. This non fic novel is about the swordfish ship 'The Andrea Gail' and its crew on the rugged seas. The rare conditions that led to three seperate storms to merdge into one dagerously violent storm is known as the perfect storm. This storm produced waves as high and ten stories high and 120 mile-an-hour winds. Talk about crazy weather. The Andrea Gail is caught right in the worst part of this storm and the crew struggles to survive, the crew's friends and family worry anxiously to hear news of their loved ones. A touching love story and an excellent adventure. The writing was outstanding and very descriptive. Sebastian Junger got all of the setting detailed well and got great point of view of all family members & friends of the victims. The Perfect Storm, was a great and suspenseful non fiction novel. It was the perfect read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

some books are good... some not so good

Out of a five star rating, i'd give the Perfect Storm three stars. Not too bad, but at the same time not one of the best books I've ever read. It had it's ups and it's downs, but for the most part it had it's downs. Now i'm not saying it was a horrible novel, it had a tension and adventure. It shows how dangerous the sea can be, how it seems the ocean has a mind of it's own. It just needed a little more descriptive narrating and less of straight truthful facts. So this book is what i'd call 'moderately well-written'

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

A storm of a book!

Nonstop action from page to page. The comepletly factual book actualy makes the Andrea Gail and the six men aboard come to life along with a monsterous sea with the power of God.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book was really enjoyable for me; it tells the true story o

This book was really enjoyable for me; it tells the true story of a commercial fishing boat, the Andrea Gail, that fishes swordfish. The book describes a fishing trip the boat heads out on, and a storm that hits them during a trip, the author describes the storm as perfect because it could not possibly have been any worse. The trip the characters take is to a fishing spot known as grand banks near Newfoundland in Canada. The crew extends the trip, because the fishing was not going well, and they needed a profit. When they start heading home they are alerted with reports of small hurricanes around the area they are sailing through, but the captain of the Gail, Billy Tyne, decides to keep going, because their fish are spoiling and they all want to get home. When they are about halfway home, three hurricanes smash together and become one of the most violent ocean storms in history, and the Andrea Gail gets pulled into it and disappears. None of the facts in this book were made up, the waves that were ten stories high and the powerful winds that tore up the sea are all real. This book was one of the most unbelievable non-fiction books I have ever read. I highly recommend it and rate it 9 out of ten.

One of the best nonfiction books I've read

Sebastian Junger is an amazing author who can tell a story in a book just like he was sitting in the room with you having a chat. By the end of this book, I felt I knew these people and I felt for them. Junger conveyed their bravery, determination, and grief to the point that I did more than just feel sorry for them; I felt respect. The movie did not do this book justice. For me this is a must-read.

hard to read

maybe it's just me, but I found the format on this hard to understand where it went back and forth between history and what were the conversations in the book
I gave up after about 15 pages and deleted off my nook

Highly Recommended

The Perfect Storm written by Sebastian Junger. The reason I read this book is because my father was watching the movie and I watched with him. I thought that the movie was great. In the first half part of the school year we had to get a book for SRA. I saw the book in the teachers book shelf and thought that I may like the book and I read it. It turned out to be a great book. In the beginning of the book Billy Tyne the captain of the Andre Gail. The Andre Gail is off to a bad start already. It is September 20th late in the season to be heading out. Tyne can barely round up a full crew. Tyne gets Alfred Pierre an Jamaican from New York City. Bobby, Bugsy, Murph, Chris. They where going to have someone else named Adam Randall. He didn't get on the boat because he thought that the Andre Gail unsafe boat to be on. So Tyne got David Sullivan to take the place of Adam Randall. S Type Pierre, Sullivan, Moran, Murphy and Shatford are going to the Grand Banks on the Andre Gail. In the middle of the book are out fishing to get some swordfish. They start to catch some fish and everything seem to be going fine. Then they stop catching some fish. They only have about 20,000 pounds with them and that is just barley pays off every thing that need to get out there. They go for a day or two with out catching anything and the crew gets anger with Tyne. The next day the crew starts to catch a lot of swordfish. Now the crew is happy because they know that they have made a lot of money and have to get back .Billy gets the weather chart off the fax and he tells the crew that there is something big coming. The crew start to get everything of the deck. They also check to see if everything is running fine. Billy know that they are headed right for the middle of the storm. There are three storms and the Andre Gail is right in the middle off all of them and people are calling it the perfect storm. Billy is head to Sable island and there are sixty-foot waves there. Now the storm is at its peck and things are going bad on the Andre Gail . On the boat the windows are imploding and water is flooding the cabin of the boat they have also lost power on the boat because of the flooding. In the conditions there is no way the a helicopter could save six people and Billy knows it. The waves are now up to Seventy-foot waves and the only thing that Billy can do is try and take them head on and hope that he get over then top of them before they break. The Andre Gail or the crew ever got out of the storm. The crew may have got off the boat before it went down but with the temperatures of the water there is no way that they could live. Tyne, Pierre, Sullivan, Moran, Murphy, Shatford are dead. They were never found again. The reason that this book matters to me is because that the theme is not to fight nature and I believe that I also love the ocean and fishing I also like true stories . If you like true stories you would like this book. You also have to like fact because the you a lot of facts in this book you most take the book and the story and nature serious because everything that happens in this book could happen to you. So you can learn not to do what they did because you could lose your life doing it. If you like any of those thing then you would like this book.

Stunning

This is a total story of a real event. A real 'perfect storm.'
When this storm hit in the late '90's we watched the water flood our street, 3 blocks from the Atlantic. Then we heard from a friend on Cape Ann what happened and that my son's CG boat was involved in one of the rescues. (He was off the Tamaroa by that time)
I cannot recommend this book enough. It will hold your attention from start to finish.

Perhaps the Perfect Storm, but not the perfect book...

Quite frankly, as a whole, the author does not do a very good job of engaging me in the story. It¿s informative, and that is a very good thing, especially in a nonfiction book, but perhaps it is just a bit too informative. It tells far too much about the history of sword fishing and way too little about that actual story. There¿s nothing wrong with that, but it¿s just not that kind of book I would enjoy. Like I said in the previous paragraph, the book is a bit too informative, and that is something I would change if I had the chance to. I opened the book expecting to read a story about survival among a crew of sword fisherman trying to stay alive in the worst story in history. However, I began reading and realized that three-quarters of the story is the history of fishing, the progression of technology in boats, and the number of deaths at sea, each one told in detail. I found myself disappointed at not being told the story that I had expected, and I would like to change that about the book. Overall, the author was not able to hold my attention throughout the book. I know when I¿m reading a good book for me because I won¿t want to stop reading until I absolutely have to. However, with this book, as a read it, I found myself wanting to stop and do other things, and I only read it to where I did because I was assigned to do so. Now, I am not saying that this book is bad, especially not for someone who loves the sea as passionately as Sebastian Junger it¿s just that I¿m really not interested in all the facts about deep-sea fishing. I would rather be told a good fishing story than read a good fishing manual. I learned a ton of information from reading this book, but none of it, for me, was very interesting, and as I sit here and type of this I can barely remember any of it. I don¿t know how deep a fathom is or how long a league is, but I do know that I will probably enjoy the movie more than the book. I have a friend who greatly enjoys fishing, and perhaps I would recommend this book to him, but overall, this book was written for a very select audience. Perhaps, if it isn¿t possible to write a decent novel about a horrible storm at sea without generically describing every detail of the history of the pastime for which the men are out at sea in the first place, then perhaps this book shouldn¿t be a book, but more of an article, or a short story. That seems more fitting to me.

review

¿The Perfect Storm¿ by Sebastian Junger The Perfect Storm is a true story about the voyage of the commercial fishing boat Andrea Gail and the and it¿s memorable, once in a lifetime journey through one of the worst storms in history. The story begins in Gloucester, MA first introducing the readers to the life, and struggles of the fisherman. Many fishermen spend their time and money at the Crows Nest, a popular bar right next to the harbor in Gloucester. Also, as quoted in the book, ¿some fish because they love it, others do it to get quick money.¿ We are then introduced to the main characters, mostly in chapters one and two: Captain Billy Tyne and (some of ) his crew Bobby Shatford (Protagonist) , and his girlfriend Chris, not crew, Bugsy, Alfred, Murph (Dale Murphy) , and Sully (Billy Sullivan), and his girlfriend (not crew). The crew sets out on the Andrea Gail, and does not catch many fish at first, but sails onward (N,E) to the seas of the North Atlantic. Soon, problems develop with the ships ice box, where the fish are stored and kept fresh, so the fish start to go bad. At the same time, however, a storm, a mixture of a cold front, strong winds, a hurricane, and other factors, approaches the ship, and the crew must decide if they are going to save the fish and make the dangerous trip around the east coast back to Gloucester, or wait out the storm, and let all the fish go bad. I think that this book is written for a people with interest and background knowledge in fishing and ships. This is because most of the language used in the book to describe the settings, boats, and work the fisherman do, somewhat assume that you know the tools and language they are using. However, to people who do not know much about fishing, like me, could get confused, and not completely follow what they are talking about. For example on page, when they describe the work that is done on the boat: ¿¿Then the engine has to be overhauled: Change the belts and filters, check the oil, fill the hydraulics, clean the injectors, clean the plugs, test the generators¿.¿ To people who do not know this vocabulary, the plot of the story, or what is going on during the story might confuse the readers. Especially, when the storm hits, there is fast paced coverage of what is happening, and the tools the crew is using to make the boat safe, or to save someone is crucial to understanding the story. However, if one could find out about the fishing vocabulary, this book could be for anyone who likes suspense, or action novels. The rating that I would give this book, on a scale from one to ten, is a 7. This is because, although the book had an interesting and action packed plot, the way it was written was often confusing, and jumping from one topic to another.

very educational regarding the fishing industry & the sea

I loved this book! I have read it 4 times over the years and am still learning from it. The author starts off describing the crew of the Andrea Gail along with their family and friends. The reader is then taken into the world of the fishing industry and how different boats and ships handle/navigate the seas. The author describes in great detail the building of these vessels,the whys and ways that they perform in rough seas and also includes first hand accounts of those who lived through ship wrecks sometimes comparing their mishaps with nature to what could have taken place with the Andrea Gail. Suddenly I was in the world of the 1600's and the Dutch fishing boats. The explanations of why boats are built the way they are regarding weight was so easy to understand. The author also explains in detail the weather and ocean of the upper east coast. Very well written. I almost did not read the book because I thought that it would be all about the men who died aboard the Andrea Gail. I figured it would be too sad. It was like reading a very interesting magazine article only in novel form.

The Imperfect Storm

As a college student from OSU, I have found many weaknesses throughout The Perfect Storm. Although the book helped to explain valuable background and scientific information, the setup made the book confusing. According to James Bonds, Junger weaves ¿Statistical and climatologically data skillfully into the narrative.¿ I would have to disagree with the skillfulness in which Junger incorporates this information. The account of the Andrea Gail alternates with this background information, making the reader switch frames of thought from the account to a different topic entirely. A large portion of the background information comes from independent accounts of other ships that sailed through similar storms. When these accounts are discussed, new names are introduced that mean nothing to the reader, making it hard to distinguish between the new names and sailors of the Andrea Gail. According to Julie Burba and Stu Muench, ¿The last third of the book is rather disappointing. Junger expended a lot of time and energy making the reader care about the crew of the Andrea Gail, yet he spent the latter portion of the book describing the rescue attempts of other ships¿ crew, who readers had not encountered until this point.¿ The attempt to make the reader care specifically about the crew of the Andrea Gail is undermined by the telling of other ships¿ accounts of similar situations.

The Perfect Storm a Perfect read

The Perfect Storm starts out with you getting to know all of the characters. They are on shore in Gloucester, Massachusetts having some drinks at the Crow¿s nest bar and discussing what the set price will be on the swordfish. Throughout the beginning of the book it really goes into detail about the seven men fishing crew that is part of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat that harbors there. The book shows how much there families and loved one¿s will miss them on their trip because their job is considered very dangerous. The next morning the men head out into the North Atlantic Ocean. Everything went as normal fishing business for about a month and they had already caught fifteen tons of swordfish. The men continue navigating and catching fish in hopes of bringing home a 20,000 dollar plus paycheck at the end of October. After normal fishing conditions and nothing too bad going wrong they decide to head towards a place that could have more fish and has not been seen for a couple seasons. Little did they know they were heading towards the middle of a hurricane. Waves and wind speed progressively got worse and eventually the boat basically fell apart. There were record breaking waves and wind speeds. The waves were said to be ten stories tall and winds gusting at 120 miles an hour. With the odds against them some of the crew drowns before the coast guard could save them all. Some of the major messages you get through this book is how valuable life really is. These men were out there because they needed to make money for their families. It makes you think of what all of them went through. Some of the parts I liked in the book more than others were when the author described what it would be like to drown in freezing cold water with an orange suit on. It was a really vivid explanation. Other parts of the book that kind of dragged on were how they went into so much detail with weather casting and numbers that didn¿t even make sense, unless you were a weather man or a captain of a boat. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a true story about an adventure for living. Overall I would give this book a rating of an eight.

Perfect storm not perfect book

This book has a very slow beginning, the author could have done something to make it seem less like the fishermen have no lives other than drinking. Once they get to the trip it gets a little better, but still a very slow read with all the fishing terms that non fishermen wouldn't understand.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

the perfect story?

this book was umm..iono if i spelled it right..exhilerating!! so much detail, it was as if i was there. i say good job to sebastian junger for putting watever he could find about wat happened and putting it into this book. although, nobody knows wat really happened on that boat, he did a good job.

The Perfect storm

The story of men against the sea. Great reading from histoy within the last 50 years

The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm is a gripping and tragic tale of the struggle between man and the elements. This novel is about the sword ship 'The Andrea Gail' and its crew on the rugged seas. The rare conditions that led to three seperate storms to merdge into one dagerously violent storm is known as the perfect storm. This storm produced waves as high and ten stories high and 120 mile-an-hour winds. The Andrea Gail is caught right in the worst part of this storm and the crew struggles to survive, the crew's friends and family worry anxiously to hear news of their loved ones. A touching love story and an excellent adventure, The Perfect Storm, written by Sebastian Junger, is a great and suspenseful novel.

Amazing book!

I love this book! I finished it with a couple days. It went into such detail about so many things ... it was page turner. Recommended to all!