The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
4.6 | 91,863 ratings
Price: 18.9
Last update: 01-29-2026
Top reviews from the United States
- freelancerA Gold Medal ReadThe Boys In The Boat
I have had this book on my Kindle for quite a while, along with a number of other books to read. The other night, I finally opened this book and haven’t been able to put it down. I am reading it late at night and every moment of my spare time. Once in a while I will find a book that I haven’t touched and have had for a while and when I finally settle down to read it, it blows my mind! It was like going through a jewelry box and discovering an overlooked piece of jewelry.
That is what happened when I finally started to read this book. I kept thinking how well it is written and what an interesting story. The book was about nine American rowers (eight oarsmen and one coxswain) from the University of Washington. Their quest was to be the best rowers, and be chosen for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and win a Gold Medal.
The book centers on the main character Joe Rantz, who we meet as a young boy and followed his story to the University and how he became a rower. But it was his struggles before that made a reader admire him more. He was a little boy when his mother died. When Rantz’s father remarried, the second wife doesn’t want him around, so they abandon him. At first, he lived with his older brother and then with others and then by himself. Rantz struggled to take care of himself, and his survival tactics were amazing. But more interesting was that he harbored no ill will toward his father or his step-mother. It was a salute to him and how he managed his life that made me proud for him and proud to be an American.
We learn about the other rowers in the nine men crew too, along with their coaches. Crew is an interesting sport and that was also a big part of the book along with the making of the rowing shells and more. It was also the eerie tale of the 1936 Berlin Olympics that plays a shadowy part of this book.
While the crew and the other sports amateur figures were at the Olympics, there was something sinister going on behind the scenes in Berlin. While the Olympics are going on, Hitler and his generals present a different picture of Berlin, removing any signs of the Jewish people. All one sees are the Third Reich flags prominently flying, and soldiers with their high stepping cadence. There were no signs of the Jewish population because the Germans were in the process of getting rid of them, and removing their identifying symbols from the town. While the games are going on, the Germans are silently and craftily orchestrating the removal of the Jews and others from the cities, streets and towns. The Germans are also building their concentration camp, setting up the awful history of the Holocaust.
This was a fascinating tale of nine men and the others who help them become great. It is also an ugly tale of what was to come.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read. It will fill you with a sense of achievement and the horrors and evil that one nation was plotting. I promise you…if you read this book, you will not be disappointed in the least. My disappointment was that I didn’t read it sooner! - Noël C.it wasn't because I loved this bookThis is the first time I have ever given this kind of a review to a book. While I've given it a 5-star rating, it wasn't because I loved this book. I gave it this rating because it was an excellent book, very well written, very clear and descriptive and wonderfully charismatic in piecing the story together as well as the description of the characters, the setting, the mood and atmosphere of the time period. The author and story deserves the accolades this book has brought in because the story was told with such great detail, emotion, and accuracy to the events of the time. At times, the author had me sitting on the edge of my seat and I found I couldn't read fast enough to get to the juicy conclusion of the event just so I could sit back in my chair and resume the reading.
While there were times in this story that I was sitting on the edge of my seat nearly breathless,this really was not my kind of story. I found this book not only to be a story about a place and people in a time period surrounding an epic event, it's also a history lesson. This was more a story of an account and I'm truly more interested in diving into the characters on a more intimate and personal level. Some may argue that the author was able to do that, but for me, it just didn't hit the mark.
In any epic, well written story, the time, place and setting must be established to give the reader a perspective of the setting ... the place and time and even perhaps, the energy of the time, era and the people. It was in these places in the book that were of great disinterest to me. I'm not a history buff and to read how the author set the scene in each circumstance to prepare the reader for the upcoming events in the story, were a great bore to me.
Yes, it was an epic story!
Yes, it was told absolutely beautifully!
Yes, the author is gifted in piecing each scene together and drawing from previous places in the book to bring the whole story together.
Yes, this story will steal your breath away and leave you on the edge of your seat.
No, I'm not interested in the history of the time.
No, I'm not interested in the scene descriptions that set the stage for each scene and the upcoming occurrences.
But I will say whether this is your type of book or not, you will not be disappointed reading this story. As the Seattle Times states on the cover of the book "Breathtaking".
Indeed, it most certainly is.