Sunrise Over Fallujah Book Review

Walter Dean Meyers has a gift for portraying the atrocities of war, but also for shedding light upon the thoughts of the soldiers. I recently read his new book Sunrise Over Fallujah, which is the sequel to Fallen Angels. The story follows the young Robin Perry, an African American eighteen year old as he survives his tour of duty in Iraq. Robin is the nephew of Richie Perry, the protagonist of Fallen Angels. The story takes place in Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom back in 2003.
Robin signs up for the Army after graduating from high school, much to the dismay of his parents. He gets assigned to a CA (Civil Affairs) unit, and his squad’s main goal is to basically show the civilians in Iraq that the Americans do not just want to kill them all, but we want to help. Throughout the story he becomes close friends with another African American soldier in his squad named Jonesy, who is a “blues guy”. This relationship plays a major role in the story, as it helps to accentuate the theme of the story which is that people are typically good, and are willing to risk their lives in order to protect others. There are several possible conflicts of the story, but that one that was most obvious to me was the internal conflict of Robin. He wants to believe that he is helping the people in Iraq like everyone is saying he is, but Robin has a difficult time believing that after witnessing American troops kill many Iraqi civilians with misplaced shots and airstrikes. Robin battles with this from the beginning of the book until the end.
As I read more and more of the story, I realized that it was oddly similar to Fallen Angels in many different ways. In Sunrise Over Fallujah, many of the soldiers are African American, just like in Fallen Angels. Also, Jonesy is very much like Pee Wee from Fallen Angels. The plot was also very much the same. During both books there was moderate action, with some chapters being intense, while others were laid back, and at the end of each book there was one battle scene in which a main character was either injured or killed.
After contemplating it, I don’t think that I would recommend this book to someone who is looking for a thrilling war story, but maybe to someone who is just looking to learn a little bit about the conflict in Iraq. Sunrise Over Fallujah seems to be written in a more simplistic style, with very few words that confused me, and a story line with relatively no twists. If I were to recommend it to someone, it would be someone in seventh grade or below.