Book Review of
Shifty’s War

Grace's Review

Having read Band of Brothers and several memoirs of paratroopers, I included Shifty’s War on my TBR. Marcus Brotherton does an amazing job of capturing Sergeant Darrell “Shifty” Powers’s voice in writing this book.

Even though it is Marcus Brotherton writing it, he uses Shifty’s voice to share Shifty’s story. I appreciate the memoir style. It felt like Shifty was actually talking to me and telling me his childhood stories, what he saw as he fought in World War II, and even his life after the war.

However, I feel like I had a case of a great book, at the wrong time. I really struggled reading this book because of the grammar.

Because it stays true to how Shifty would talk in real life, there are many grammatical errors. Sometimes it really got on my nerves, and I kept autocorrecting in my head. At the very end, I found my way out of this mindset, but it made the reading slower for me.

Many times I don’t mind having a unique voice in memoir-style writing. I understand that it is trying to capture the real human life element of the story. It is trying to create an authentic feel for the reader, but it did cause a struggle when reading it for me.

I love the perspective. I love the unique stories. I enjoyed connecting dots from other books from when he mentioned Winters shaving to when Wild Bill was injured. All these I could remember being described from a different perspective, and I loved seeing Shifty’s point of view.

If you enjoy World War II stories, this is a great one to try. If you are trying to see Band of Brothers from different perspectives and even another real-life person’s thoughts on that book and mini-series, this is a good one to pick up. Just know that it might be a slower read.