Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Summary and Reviews of The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

The Perfect Storm

A True Story of Men Against the Sea

by Sebastian Junger
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (7):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 1, 2000, 256 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 1998, 301 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

"Takes readers into the maelstrom and shows nature's splendid and dangerous havoc at its utmost".

October 1991. It was "the perfect storm"--a tempest that may happen only once in a century--a nor'easter created by so rare a combination of factors that it could not possibly have been worse. Creating waves ten stories high and winds of 120 miles an hour, the storm whipped the sea to inconceivable levels few people on Earth have ever witnessed. Few, except the six-man crew of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing boat tragically headed towards its hellish center.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Boston Globe
Mesmerizing....Packs an emotional wallop.

Entertainment Weekly
Guaranteed to blow readers away...A+.

LA Times Book Review
A wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea.

Newsweek - David Gates
As with any true-adventure story, you wonder if you ought to be getting such a bang out of real people's real suffering. But in The Perfect Storm, we're sharers, not voyeurs. The book is a humanizing reminder that we, too, could -- probably will -- be called on to bear more than we could possibly imagine.

Philadelphia Inquirer
Takes readers into the maelstrom and shows nature's splendid and dangerous havoc at its utmost.

Time Magazine - John Snow
What gives his narration its blood and bones, however, is the fine, boozy picture he sketches of the fishermen's bars of Gloucester, Mass., the Andrea Gail's home port. For the younger fishermen, the bars are home and family in the short weeks between the month-long voyages to the Grand Banks. They make good money, $4,000 or $5,000 a trip, and buy a lot of drinks. . . . The book's epigraph, from Sir Walter Scott, has it right 'It's no fish ye're buying, it's men's lives.'

Publishers Weekly
In meteorological jargon, a perfect storm is one unsurpassed in ferocity and duration a description that fits the so-called Halloween Gale of October 1991 in the western Atlantic. Junger, who has written for American Heritage and Outside, masterfully handles his account of that storm and its devastation. He begins with a look at the seedy town of Gloucester, Mass., which has been sliding downhill ever since the North Atlantic fishing industry declined, then focuses his attention on the captain and the five-man crew of the Andrea Gail, a swordfishing vessel. He then charts the storm particularly formidable because three storms had converged from the south, the west and the north that created winds up to 100 miles an hour and waves that topped 110 feet. He reconstructs what the situation must have been aboard the ship during the final hours of its losing battle with the sea, and the moments when it went down with the loss of all hands. He recaps the courageous flight of an Air National Guard helicopter, which had to be ditched in the ocean leaving one man dead while the other four were rescued then returns to Gloucester and describes the reaction to the loss of the Andrea Gail. Even with the inclusion of technical information, this tale of the Storm of the Century is a thrilling read and seems a natural for filming.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Perfect Storm, try these:

  • The Vortex jacket

    The Vortex

    by Scott Carney , Jason Miklian

    Published 2023

    About this book

    The deadliest storm in modern history ripped Pakistan in two and led the world to the brink of nuclear war when American and Soviet forces converged in the Bay of Bengal.

  • The Wave jacket

    The Wave

    by Susan Casey

    Published 2011

    About this book

    More by this author

    From Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Devil’s Teeth, an astonishing book about colossal, ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out.

We have 8 read-alikes for The Perfect Storm, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Sebastian Junger
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Wager
    by David Grann
    From the bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a gripping story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Harlem Rhapsody
    by Victoria Christopher Murray

    The extraordinary story of the woman who ignited the Harlem Renaissance.

  • Book Jacket

    Three Days in June
    by Anne Tyler

    A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Who Said...

The only completely consistent people are the dead

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

D to T N

and be entered to win..