Rating: 
Summary: Great read...couldn't put it down.
Review: Although not a graduate of this fine establishment several of my friends are and the book echoed many of their colorful stories. The book is extremely well written...fast paced...great character development...and in my opinion a very balanced representation of the WP experience. If I was twenty years younger this book would have inspired me to consider four years at the point.I think it's a must read for anyone interested in the ideals of duty, honor, and country....GREAT JOB!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Good stories but writing style detracts from the substance
Review: I think "Absolutely American" could have been so much more, but fell short. I am so glad that David Lipsky recorded the stories of the cadets, West Point History, and the instructors for all of us to read. Unfortunately, Lipsky's writing style is disjointed and detracts from the compelling stories. His chapters jump back and forth, and try to cover the experiences of too many cadets at once. I wish that Lipsky had stuck with a few key cadets, and not inserted so many other anecdotes because it made his work difficult to follow. I can't exactly pinpoint why Lipsky's writing style falls short of paying the stories justice--perhaps it's almost to MTVish (i.e jumping back and forth.) However, I believe that David Lipsky does give the public a better, clearer idea of what it means to be a cadet at West Point. It's worth the read for the substance, but certainly not the style. My favorite story was of Don "Whitey" Herzog and his career choices.
Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: Excellent depiction of academy life. Good reinforcement that the kids who attend this unique institution are the right type and frame of mind for the job they are doing. America needs these types of leaders and this book lets us see into their world for a brief glimpse.
Rating: 
Summary: cadet life at its realest
Review: I have just read two cool freaking books! Absolutely American. And Make Every Girl Want You. Both books are about men trying to find their way in this world. This book chronicles the life of many men (& women), their challenges, their obstacles, & how they fared, while the other book chronicles two men and everything they learned about picking-up girls. What makes this book such a great read is that it lets you get up close & personal, like you'd never want to be! After reading this, I'm very glad I never attended West Point, although I had considered it as a teenager. The book's greatest asset is that you view the cadets as real people. You see their trials & tribulations. And it's all real. You see them wake up at dawn and hate it. But you also see them face the same questions all young people do, such as: What am I gonna do with my life? Thanks to Lipsky for embedding himself at West Point, in order to convey to us outsiders exactly what daily life is like at the Academy.
Rating:
Summary: Well, I couldn't do it.
Review: My family has a big military background. My brother went to the Air Force Academy. My father instructed on B-25s in World War II. My uncle drove a tank with Patton's Third Army. So I've always enjoyed military history and knew I'd enjoy this book. It is a very good read because it comes from the perspective of the cadets, warts and all. Sometimes you're aghast at what happens to them, the #1 cadet in a class gone in his senior year because of drugs. Another cadet, smart but coasting, essentially run out of town by a new tactical commander. And therein for me lay the truth of the matter for me: where my brother could put up with that stuff, I wouldn't have been able to. Cadets are graded on three criteria: Academics, Knowledge and Physical Skills. Knowledge is essentially memorizing all of West Point's rules. Uh-oh. That kills it for me. Unlike "Huck" Finn, who hates rules, I simply wouldn't have had the patience to learn them. I think every prospective cadet should talk to a recent graduate AND read this book, to find out if they've got it in them. And for what my opinion matters, the person to go into combat under is Ryan Southerland.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Very Captivating
Review: "Absolutely American" gives you what should have been an interesting look at our renouned U.S. Military Academy, but somehow managed to make it boring. What I thought would be a bonafide look at the Military Academy turned out to be a lot of interviews and stories of a lot of cadets (which are interesting to them and their families, not to me), and, maybe it's only me, but I got the impression that in the strict interviewing environment of the Military Academy the interviews and stories are very much softened with "spin". All in all, the book was not very captivating.
Rating:
Summary: Boring And Unimportant
Review: This book sounded like it would be interesting and important, but instead, I found it to be boring and unimportant. There are a lot of other negative impressions I got out of this, but, the main one was that it was very, very, slow, uninteresting, and boring.
Rating: 
Summary: Huah
Review: I was anxious to read a book taking off on the Al Pacinno theme from his very successful movie Scent of a Woman. After finishing the first fifty pages of Absolutely American of which I was all excited, HUAH, and all it stands for, was no longer to be found. It was a letdown. I found the overall theme of the book to be very weak in holding my interest and the pages seemed filled with the daily trivia of army life in the non-combat arena.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely impressive!
Review: I've read a lot of books about West Point and other American military academies. The one thing nearly every author has difficulty conveying is a full, comprehensive picture of a cadet's (or midshipman's, as appropriate) day to day life: what he expected, what he confronts, what he hopes for. I finally found some of that in Ed Ruggero's "Duty First" (2001). But David Lipsky's "Absolutely American" eclipses even that. If Lipsky's access to the USMA and its students was unprecedented, the book he produced amply deserves that accolade too. This book is an engrossing look into the lives of a number of West Point cadets and their officers. I frequently found myself reading 50 pages at a stretch. The pace is quick, yet it never felt rushed. Whatever your personality type or opinions of the Academy, chances are you'll find someone to sympathize with and root for, whether it's the hard-charging, *huah* Mark Thompson, the conflicted "Whitey" Herzog, the hard-luck George Rash, or any of several others. Lipsky's ability to paint full portraits of these cadets during this critical time in their lives shouldn't be underestimated. One of the inevitable elements of any West Point book is the argument over whether the Academy has "gone soft" in the years since ... well, generally since whoever's speaking attended there. That same debate is part of this book too, and it shapes much of the dramatic tension that gives the book its almost novel-like quality. It's easy to take sides, but there aren't any easy answers: Should George Rash have been driven from the Academy, or was he being unfairly picked on? Was LtCol Keirsey a hero, a villain, or just a fall guy to "political correctness"? Is Captain Paredes a martinet, or a defender of Academy standards? This book raises a lot of questions that civilians as well as military types should be willing to give thought to. It's easy to think of the cadets in this book as characters. But now, they're out on the front lines (in fact, I read the section about one cadet's decision to post to a new light-infantry battalion located near Seattle on the same day I saw on the TV news that that very battalion is about to be shipped to Iraq; presumably he's going with them). I predict the people the reader meets in these pages will stick with him for a long time after the book is complete. In fact, as I read "Absolutely American," I kept having two thoughts. One was that it would be great to revisit these now-former cadets every few years ... like Michael Apted's famous series of British documentaries, "Seven Up," "Seven Plus Seven," "14 Up," and so on ... to see how they're doing. The second thought, being someone naturally more sympathetic to the sea services than to the Army, was, "I wish someone would do this for Annapolis too." So, Mr. Lipsky: Do you have any plans for the next four years?
Rating:
Summary: Eh!
Review: This book is getting a great buildup, so I got hold of one to read during these lazy days of summer. Great for falling asleep on the beach. What a disappointment, for me, anyway. Mr. Lipsky is a good writer, but it is not the right subject for him.
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