" This book was definitely part of historical journalism and made famous for it, but I wasn't personally ecstatic about it. It was honest about the personal accounts of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima, yet I found myself wandering mentally while reading it on multiple occasions. Possibly the reason for this was because I felt compelled to do so for my student (who had to read this for his history class), but I felt like the writing was somewhat dry and lacking emotion in parts, especially since this would be such an emotionally-charged subject. Writing in the journalistic style probably led to this lack of emotional involvement, as they are focused on telling the story and not necessarily how the story should make you feel. I do recommend it as an interesting historical account of the bombing incident and its aftermath, as John Hersey actually returned to Japan 40 years after the incident and tracked down his original subjects in order to track how the bomb affect the lives of these individuals. "
— Amy, 2/20/2014