Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Published 2010 · 500 pages · 130,000 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Biography, History, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction
How hard is Unbroken to read?
Unbroken scores 17 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 28 out of 100
- Military terminology. Accessible narrative style.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 18 out of 100
- Concrete narrative. Story-driven throughout.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with historical detail and personal narrative.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Chronological. Suspenseful but direct.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Zamperini as symbol of human endurance.
- Ironic distance: 80 out of 100
- Earnest, compassionate narration.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Zamperini's postwar struggles provide suspense even in the final act.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Chronological three-act structure. Clean and effective.
How Unbroken is regarded
Unbroken holds a literary regard score of 45 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.