Readers will be quickly drawn into the experiences of Matt Duffy, an 18-year-old engineer serving in Iraq during the most recent war there. He has woken up in a hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone as he recovers for a head injury that he incurred in an alleyway altercation. There seems to be some sort of mystery involved with what happened in the alley because a young boy, who had been hanging around with his unit, was also killed during the altercation.

Due to his head injury, he is unable to remember the events as they happened, but he is getting glimpses of his memory as he starts to recover and with the help of an army psychology who has been assigned to evaluate whether he is ready to head back into combat.

As he starts to recover his memories, Matt introduces the reader to the other people in his unit, who have each become very important people in his life. Though they haven't been together long, they all consider each other to be family. This only makes what has happened even more difficult to handle.

McCormick is a master at creating characters and her writing style easily draws the readers into the tale. Through Matt and those around him, readers will get to experience what it can be like to go through battle and deal with the consequences of people dying, both your friends and your enemies.

My only problem with the book is it seemed to present an extraordinary experience rather than highlighting what the average solider goes through. The events that led to Matt's injuries are not something that happen to everyone who has gone to Iraq, and as a result really present a dramatized version of the horrors. This doesn't draw away from the interest of the story, and it is also not an exaggeration, but it would be like telling the story of My Lai in Vietnam and presenting it as the story of what Vietnam vets experienced.