Fallen Angels

By Walter Dean Myers

Book Overview

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks

With an Introduction by National Ambassador of Young People's Literature Jason Reynolds and bonus material by Coretta Scott King Award winner Christopher Myers.

A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find virtue in himself and his comrades, he questions why Black troops are given the most dangerous assignments, and why the US is even there at all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1546146962
• ISBN13: 9781546146964
• Release Date: May 2025
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

Incredible

I am a 15 year old "jock" that usually hates reading. but with this book i have turned into a book worm. I mean this book is incredible, for the first time in my life i finnished a book in less than a week. It's a story of a young man trying to find out who he is while fighting in a war. I dunno what else to say. it's just plain awesome.

A book for everyone

I read this book because it is an optional novel for me to teach to my sophomores. I wasn't expecting much. I had it labelled in my mind as a "Vietnam War" book, a "boy's" book, and a "Black experience" book. What I found was a gripping novel about war and compassion, humanity and the humane. It was so great I read the whole book in one five hour sitting. Meyers uses humor at the exact moments it is needed, deftly manipulating the reader's emotions, and the character portrayals are so vivid I had the entire book cast with popular actors within a few pages! This is one of the best books I've read all year, and I'm definitely going to use it in the classroom!

Review of ?Fallen Angels?

Fallen Angels is about a soldier named Perry and his adventures in Vietnam. I thought this was a great book and I couldn't put it down. I was assigned to read this book, but I read it even in my spare time for fun. There is a lot of action when Perry and his squad go into battle. There was a lot of history about the Vietnam War. This kept me interested the whole time. There are a couple of points where the story gets a little weird when Perry is thinking about his feelings about the war and killing people. He seems to be really depressed and moody and really wanting to go home. He wishes he never joined the army. But it helped me understand how a soldier must have felt about the war. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially fans of history and action books. One last thing make, sure that you have a lot of spare time before reading Fallen Angles, because you won't want to put it down.

Definitely Worth the Read

Fallen Angels - A Look at What Life Really MeansWalter Dean Myers' Fallen Angels is a well-written tale of not only the tragedies of the Vietnam War and of the experiences of the typical black American soldier, but also an open-minded view of the realities of precious life and courageous death. The main character in the book, Richard Perry, is a young man fresh out of a high school in Harlem. When dreams of going to college and playing basketball don't turn out as he'd planned, Perry joins the army, and is sent to the front line in Vietnam. The rest of the story describes his life in the army: his arrival in the foreign country, the meeting of his squad, and the building of friendships and camaraderie. The dialogue between the soldiers is realistic, sometimes grotesque, and often humorous. Myers also vividly depicts the battles Perry fights in, using exquisite language so to bring the reader into the battle itself with the soldiers. He uses his expertise to show the pain felt by Perry and his friends. I do not mean physical pain alone, but pain of the aching heart and wandering mind, the tired body and longing soul. One example of such description is found after one particular battle when Perry says, " I had stood trembling in fear and waiting, and had run in near panic for the choppers and hoped and prayed for a few minutes more of life" (Myers 141). Another example is found during another battle, when Perry tries desperately to think of other things besides the war he is in. He remembers his Harlem home, saying, " It would be day and the park would be filled with kids, their screaming and laughter would slide along the light beams into the helter skelter world of monkey bars and swings" ( 246). For me, this book is one of great power and insight. It brought me deeper into the world we live in, a world of prejudice, violence, and love. It took me back to days before my time, teaching me about world history, as well as the story of a most interesting human being. One of the things I think I enjoy the most about this book is its display of humanity found in the depths of war. The feelings shared by Perry about his family and his life back in the World show compassion most people would probably not expect from a trained soldier. The story is like an elongated parable, teaching the reader a new sense of morality about warfare and violence. I'm not saying that these things are moral in themselves, but rather that love, tenderness and virtue can be found behind the scenes in the hearts of the men who fight in a war. It is for this reason that I highly disagree with the reviewer from Topeka, Kansas, who leads readers of his review to believe that he threw his copy of the book away because it was so bad. While it may not always be historically accurate by way of the use of guns or grenades, it is after all a work of fiction, and so is expected to quaver in its depiction of the war. It is an excellent piece of work; a product both entertaining and

Fallen Angles Review

I am a sophomore at Clark Magnet High School and I just finished reading Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers. As a high school student I have to tell you that this is the best book that I read this year. This is also one of the best books that I have enjoyed in a very long time. I got the book from our school library and I did not think that it was going to be this good. I just checked it out and told myself that it is just a book and its going to be just like the other 90% of the books that I have read and that it is going to be boring. Little did I know that I enjoyed this book. This book is written so close to the heart. Fallen Angels if about the Vietnam War and how it was actually going on and the real truth behind the way the war was going on. This is also a story about friendship between soldiers and other personnel from the army. This book was written in so much detail that you think that you are there in the battle fighting with the enemy. This story is about the main character whose name is Richard Perry and he enlists in the army. There he meets a friend who later becomes his closest friend and his name is Peewee. At the army Peewee and Perry become close friends and they meet some other friends who are Lobel, Johnson, Brummer and their tight friendship. They get into many battles with the Vietnamese and end up losing their friends. This book shows how much of an effect the Vietnam War had on the soldiers and how they try to stick together through all the hardships. I would recommend this book to war-story fans and war-story lovers that are mature. Even though I am a little young to be reading this book it was still interesting to me. Fallen Angels contains some very graphic language that I do not think will be appropriate to teenagers under the age of seventeen. So if you like war-stories this will be a great story to start reading.