Well..

I might be the only person to say I wasn't a huge fan of the book. I had read it in my senior year of highschool and honestly had a hard time finishing it. That's why I was almost surprised when everyone was tweeting how much they all loved the book, but I figured a second go around might make me like it more.
Of course having read it two years ago, I didn't remember every single detail about the book but as I began to read it again, first things that came to me were the reasons I didn't like it. To start, I always felt that the book's organization was really off putting for me at least. I would get into the story and then it would cut off and go to another section of John's life and just as I got involved with this passage it switches to evidence. At some points I was hooked enough to keep my interest but at other points I was just really waiting for the continuation of previous passages. Something that I enjoyed was the detail of the Vietnam War aspect of the book. It took the detail of the psychological trauma that a soldier faces from during the war into after the war and how much it can still affect the person years later. I think one aspect of the book that I didn't like when I first read it before but I really liked a lot more this time was the evidence sections. With the evidence O'brien almost invited you to just think of what could have happened to Kathy, giving you hypotheses as well, and since he doesn't ever give a clear cut resolution (another reason why I wasn't a huge fan, I want an ending!), you do have to take what you read and interpret the ending in your own way which is why I liked it and didn't like it. I felt I was more involved with this book than had it been mapped out and I was just following along, as I read it again I felt as though all of this was happening while I was there and I was trying to solve the mystery as well. All in all, I hate to say it but I could put down this book, I could put it down pretty easily.