What I liked about this novel is that, instead of focussing on military battles, it describes the array of feelings that a young soldier goes through in a war: excitement, boredom, fear, shame. It is only when the main character is forced to fight in order to survive that he stops having feelings (in other words, that he stops being a human) and becomes a killing machine. And this is what horrifies Stephen Crane about war.

This book was awful.

It was okay, but a little slow. It kept me interested, though.

Loved it! The storytelling drew me in and had me reading till the end. Crane did a masterful job.

A deeply psychological novel of a young man who decides to fight in the Civil War, it follows his thoughts as he is filled, in turns, with patriotism, doubt, fear, shame, cowardice, and heroism.
I wasn't quite ready for such a thought-filled story, expecting more of a narrative; it was not only quite engaging but also at times humorous and quite insightful.

An interesting trick Crane pulled was not using the main character's name throughout most of the book (since the first couple of chapters? something that's hard to go back and check with an audio book), but instead identified him as "the youth" or some such. Helped create more of an Everyman the reader (or listener) could identify with, no matter which side you might have rooted for.

I would recommend READING vs. LISTENING TO this book. I felt like a lot of thematic elements and the beauty of the language itself was lost in the reading. It was tough to pay attention to this particular reader.

Excellent and quick read.

Through highly vivid and visual prose, this novel provides a first-person description of a cruel American Civil War battle. Much of the story describes how the difficult battle affects the mental state of a young recruit on the front lines. In particular, the young hero vacilates between wanting to fight and wanting to flee.