House to House

A decorated war hero who killed five Iraqi insurgents in the bloody second battle of Fallujah, David Bellavia recounts his time in the U.S. military in this ravaging and deeply personal memoir. Along with writer and historian John Bruning, Bellavia crafts a remarkable account filled with the horror and heartache of war. It's a daunting task for narrator Ray Porter to relay the facts of this audiobook while also assuming the roles of the various hard-nosed characters and capturing the daily bloodshed. He never quite manages to vividly place his listeners inside the battle as he depicts events. Bellavia's account is so graphic and taut that he himself may be the ideal narrator. Nevertheless, Porter offers a concentrated reading that will surely engage listeners. L.B. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

July 23, 2007
Staff sergeant Bellavia's account of the fierce 2004 fighting in Fallujah will satisfy readers who like their testosterone undiluted. Portraying himself as a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, superbly trained warrior, deeply in love with America and the men in his unit, contemptuous of liberals and a U.S. media that fails to support soldiers fighting in the front lines of the global war on terror, Bellavia begins with a nasty urban shootout against Shiite insurgent militias. Six months later, his unit prepares to assault the massively fortified city of Fallujah in a ferocious battle that takes up the rest of the book. Anyone expecting an overview of strategy or political background to the war has picked the wrong book. Bellavia writes a precise, hour-by-hour account of the fighting, featuring repeated heroic feats and brave sacrifice from Americans but none from the enemy, contemptuously dismissed as drug-addled, suicidal maniacs. Readers will encounter a nuts-and-bolts description of weapons, house-to-house tactics, gallantry and tragic mistakes, culminating with a glorious victory that, in Bellavia's view, will go down in history with the invasion of Normandy. Like a pitch-by-pitch record of a baseball game, this detailed battle description will fascinate enthusiasts and bore everyone else.