Honor and Duty

Honor and Duty is just a wonderful book. I read it and reread it until the pages were dog-eared, and lent it to my brother, who was Active Duty military at the time and he read it and kept it! The struggles that Kai goes through at West Point are nothing less than incredible. His personal story of Honor and Duty will speak to anyone, of any ethnic origin, military or not. This is one of those keepers folks - buy it, read it, keep it.

This book has been deeply inspiring. As an ethnic Chinese living in America, reading this book has helped me answer questions about myself that I never even knew I was asking. Everything that Kai Ting went through seemed somehow strangely familiar to me even though I wasn't raised in the hood, never went to West Point, and am not even a boy. Gus Lee is as powerful a writer as you will ever read. His prose is tight and flowing. This book is in no way an action thriller or mystery, but he keeps you on the edge of your seat as if it were. Contrary to the protests of some of the other reviewers, his characters are not one dimensional. They demonstrate very real conflicts and feelings. As we get to see the world through Kai's eyes, we get to know Kai, and we get an important social perspective into the tumultuous world of the 1960s. This is not just a book for Chinese Americans or for potential West Point cadets. It is a book for humanity. About humanity and what it means to find yourself. This book taught me the honor of upholding your Eastern core while embracing Western culture. It showed me that it is possible to retain your own honor in the face of failure or defeat. And for that I thank Gus Lee.

This book is an absolute must for all who like China Boy, and for all who like good reading. Where China Boy was a little bit slow, Honor and Duty is over almost too fast (and this by about double the length :-). The struggle becomes humongous for Kai when he enters the Army, and his decision to go there. Who should he have more Duty to? His father, who preaches West Point as the best school of the world, or his Dababa, Uncle Shim, who, on one hand, teaches Kai to obey his father, but on the other hand he says "Hau nan bu dang bin". Good boys don't become Soldiers. A quick warining: If you are easily offended, you might not want to read this book, for it containst some swearing. I noticed this because I started to swear myself after I read this :-) This does not diminish the greatness of this book, though, and I highly recommend it.

I read China Boy under duress for a Humanities Class, but what I discovered was a fabulous book written with heart wrenching detail of one boy's struggle to reconcile the past with the present and bridge the cultural rift between his Chinese roots and his American destiny. Honor and Duty shows us Kai Ting as an adult, a product of this struggle fought and won, embarking on one of the greatest challenges of his young life--WestPoint. Not only does this reflect the political climate of the times, the aura of that hallowed and mysterious institution, but of one man's reconciliation of his father's dreams and his own. Lee writes an account of Ting's progress through, and ultimately out of, the Point with a refreshing and intensely personal style. By the end of the book even a 19 year old female civilian student can intimately feel the pain and joy that Kai experiences. A huge thank you to Gus Lee for bringing the story of Kai Ting to the world and for the experiences that created the character (I believe the two novels are largely autobiographical). A phenomenal, beautifully written story...a must read!

This book is a not only a first-rate story, but also is a great study of the conflict between several cultures (e.g., family, heritage, upbringing, the military, West Point, the Sixties) that shape Kai Ting's life. Gus Lee does a fantastic job of developing real, believable and thoroughly interesting characters, and really making the reader care about what happens to each of the people in the book. My only disappointment was that the book ended too soon! I wanted to read more! . . . unless the author's thinking was that he wanted the reader come up with his or her own continuation of the story, or perhaps we will someday see a sequel. I hope the latter is true.