Waiting for a Rainbow: Coming of Age in Vietnam

by Paul Michael Frazee

The author-- himself a veteran of the Vietnam conflict-- takes the reader on an unforgettable journey back through the places, times, and people of that war, as experienced by a young U.S Army volunteer. It's about God, guts, and glory-- and you won't be able to put this book down until the final curtain falls. (Historical fiction)

256 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1995

Reviews

[Jay Schutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to win this book in a goodreads giveaway in return for a review. Being an army infantry veteran of the Vietnam War, this book appealed to me especially since I was stationed at some of the locations mentioned in the story. I could really visualize what was going on there because of my familiarity with the area.
The story recounts an army officer, many years after his tour of duty in Nam, telling his son of his experiences and explaining at the end how his son got his given name.
This book brought back memories for me and was a pretty good depiction of the Vietnam experience. Parts of the story seemed far-fetched to me, but, being a work of fiction, the author had license to paint his own picture.
The book was very well put across to the reader, but there were many mistakes in sentence structure. Almost on every page.

[Helen Bonanomi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally am a big fan of military/combat novels, but this one didn't quite hit the mark. Story line was too unlikely and unrealistic. I also found the numerous grammer and typographical errors somewhat distracting.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads giveaway

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remembering when.

Relived 57 years ago. As a 19 year old, being at some of same bases as the author. Memories as fresh as yesterday.
Welcome Home!

[Kelly Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoy learning more about Viet Nam . I was in high school and wondered why so many people bashed our troops. This book, although fictional, is a taste of this conflict's roiling under currents, many of which fed the home-front's ire. However, what the American people heard was twisted lies, hidden from the real truth.

Frazee's novel ranks up there with the likes of Tim O'brian's The Things They Carried

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent book and captured a lot of important themes for the period. This work went deeply into sexual themes, prolly a little deeper than necessary and approached erotic writing, not that it hurts the book for Frazee's target audience. It just wasn't something you are expecting in a military memoir.

My main complaint with Frazee's book was that it was too long, and became boring. It started to really weigh on me about halfway through. Several times I wanted to stop reading and pick up something else. He is telling a story about himself, not only about what he did in Vietnam per se. This book needed a lot more editing than it has, and should be about half the size.

The story really rushes into the ending, unexpectedly, which was incredibly bad and seemed kind of fake. It's the kind of ending that makes you doubt the author's sincerity, though I would not do such a thing out of respect. Just know that the end was a hardcore event sequence. Now, in the author's defense, I will say that when writing things that are this traumatic, it is hard to communicate the shock of the event to people who weren’t there.

In fact, the idea that the whole thing seemed hard to communicate was the essence of the writer's problem in executing this project. He seemed disconnected, or deadened by the events, and so the writing felt robotic and dull at times. This is NOT a book I would recommend to a friend, but it wasn't bad enough of a book...to call it bad. It wasn't good and it would have been excellent with better editing, but there are a lot of amazing books that deserve to be read before you reach for this one.