One of my two favorite classes in college was listed in the course catalog as “Vietnam literature.” I thought it sounded interesting, so I signed up for it. Only to find out that it was actually “Literature of the Vietnam War,” which was at first disappointing. Then the class actually started. It was a small class, and we were able to have some great discussions. We even went on what I believe was the one and only field trip of my college career. We’d read Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” — which is, it should be noted, so horrific and awful and heartbreaking and true (or not) and also sometimes even funny — and he was doing a reading in a city about 6 hours away. So we decided we’d borrow a school van and trek down there, and it was a wacky and lovely time.

I’ve read a lot more “war fiction” since that class. I don’t care for the very detailed, this-battle-happened-like-this sort of thing but rather the emotional and aftermath stuff. Dana Reinhardt’s “The Things a Brother Knows” is the first book about the war in Iraq that I’ve read. Although it might be about Afghanistan; I don’t think the location is every specifically mentioned. Wherever the war is, “The Things a Brother Knows” is the story of a boy whose 18-year-old brother joins the Marines right out of high school, goes to said war and then comes home. He’s wounded, but not physically, and the whole family is struggling to deal with that. It isn’t a terribly long book, but it’s effective. I read it in its entirety last night, and it made me cry a few times. It also made me go to bed far too late and thus be overly sleepy today. (OK, fine. Books don’t make people stay up too late. People make people stay up too late.)

So! If you like books about families and sadness and dealing with things, you should read “The Things a Brother Knows.” And also “The Things They Carried.” Both of which can the found in the “Things” section of your favorite local book emporium.

(Thus ends the Lamest Book Review Ever.)