Rating: 
Summary: You'll taste the salt and hear the waves!
Review: The documentary style puts the reader in the center of the lives of these ill-fated fishermen. The details of the fishing business are an education in themselves, but flow unobtrusively through the story. I could close my eyes and see the towering waves that turned one ship sideways and tossed high enough to give the rescue helicopter pilot cause for concern. The author has constructed a story based on events that actually happened. He brought the people and events of the days of the "perfect storm" to life in a way that made them all too real and important to someone who had never met them.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Reviews...
Review: There are two kinds of reviews in this list. Some people were THRILLED by the book and gave it 9 or 10 because of its emotional impact on them. Other people panned the book and gave it a 3 or 4. Personally, I find the bad reviews to be supercilious and superficial. When I finished the book, my hands ached. That's what counts.
Rating: 
Summary: After the first 100 pages, it finally starts to get good.
Review: Slightly disappointing. What better plot than people on boats out in the ocean trying to survive through a hurricane. Sounds exciting, doesn't it. Unfortunately, the the presentation was mediocre. Choppy paragraphs, wandering tangients, too many unnecessary details that detract from the story. Should have focused more on the storm, on the survival, more character development, less information about meteorology, and how boats are built...etc. However, I do think it's worth reading. There are some very suspensful moments and superb rescues. Just be ready to skim, especially portions of the first few chapters.
Rating:
Summary: Edge-of-your-seat excitement
Review: This book was a peek into a world known by few. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the book would have benefited from some illustrations. I can't picture what these big ships look like. I would have liked photos or line drawings that gave me a feel for their size. Junger's description of drowning was almost too real. Other than that, I'll never eat another piece of fish without thinking of these men.
Rating:
Summary: it had a good story and it was really well written
Review: I may be only 14, but i know what makes a good book and what it looks like in the text. The Perfect Storm had a great story that brought you into the life of a swordfisherman and back out again, alive, unlike the focus people of this book. The tragitys that the crew faced and the heros that tried and did save lives are vividly recreated. the scientific part of the book explained why this was the perfect storm and what made it so devistating. (sorry about my spelling)
I like books that can capture the imagination and hold your attention to the end, like this book. as you move throught the last few moments of the crew's lives you can almost taste the fear that must have surrounded them just befor the sinking.
i feel that the storm the book was written about was almost too real to be true, almost a fanticy... it makes you wonder, did the boat really sink? was this a real thing that could and did happen? will it happen again and what will be said about a storm that great the second time it comes thru, to change lives... Julie age 14 tell me what you think of this book. did you like it as much as i did? stax@snet.net
Rating: 
Summary: Flat and flawed
Review: Flat characterizations, confusing transitions, and over dramatizing in some scenes -- are PJs really supermen? Is Ray Leonard really that dumb and selfish? Whatever happened to the Sartori did it eventually sink? Is the author claiming, and then justifying, the Coast Guard's turning off the Andrea Gale's EPIRB? This is a serious charge. Some of the history and technique of commercial fishing sounds accurate, as does the drowning description, but this is fiction so how much can any of the seemingly factual stuff be relied on? Mr. Junger should have signed on as a fishing boat crew member first then he might have been able to write about something he knows. Not worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: The story stayed with me long after the reading was done...
Review: This was a true story that read like fiction...
Throughout, it was sometimes hard to comprehend
that what I was reading actually took place.
I will look at Swordfish with near-reverence from this point forward. As a sidenote, I finished up the book while on a
business trip to London April 19. The night of
April 20, on BBC 4 TV, there was a fine one-hour
1998 documentary on 'The Perfect Storm.' The show couldn't expect to
capture the detail and depth of the book, and it didn't.
Nonetheless, it was spellbinding to see that these
events--even though I already knew the
answer--actually occured and that the people
actually existed. I will never forget 'The Perfect Storm.'
It's on an extremely short list
of books that I'd read again.
Rating:
Summary: "A book as ferocious & freightening as the storm itself"
Review: In college, I once had an opportunity to spend a summer vacation working on a fishing boat out of Alaska. I decided instead to go to Mexico and surf. After reading this book, I think I made the right choice. Accurate or not, this book would scare the bejesus out of even the most experienced sailor!
Rating:
Summary: Good reading about young men and the sea
Review: This was a gripping book. Although not a literary masterpiece, I found the clipped prose appropriate for the subject matter and for the tense action scenes in the book. The seeming lack of compassion from the author worked well to "pull" the reader into a horror story with a known tragic ending. I found myself dreading the idea of getting to know and like characters that were about to die horrible, terrifying deaths. I spent some years sailing with accomplished crews and grew up on the coast, so I learned early on to respect and fear the sea. However, the book caused me to have cold chills as I recalled a particular night off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. Off on a Thanksgiving weekend sailing trip, we dragged anchor and washed aground during the night, breaking a rudder cable. We spent the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning controlling a broken rudder cable with manual labor, crossing shipping lanes in building seas. We were all terrified; yet, I managed to cook our Thanksgiving turkey in the galley between watches. There is a certain calm and sense of duty that accompanies terror, especially when there are as few alternatives as one has on a small boat in a big sea. The Perfect Storm managed to capture the eeriness of duty and the residual of ship boredom, even in the face of an emergency situation of gigantic proportions. I thought it was an engrossing and heartbreaking tale of the sea.
Rating:
Summary: This book hits like a rogue wave
Review: This is the best nautical non-fiction I have ever read. Mr. Junger develops a story far more frightening than any Koontz or King novel. I was out in a Coast Guard boat (UTB) off of Florida on Halloween day 1991 and conditions there, while far, far, far less extreme than up north, were awe-inspiring. Junger's description of storm formations, wave heights, and ship construction were first rate. He does a credible job of piecing together the last hours of the "Andrea Gail" and the terror the crew must have felt. And the chapters devoted to the U.S. Coast Guard and Air National Guard rescuers made me feel proud to have served. Lastly if people don't believe in at least the possibility of a 100 ft wave than they don't know the ocean. Anything is possible. Overall an outstanding book.
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