Definitely horrifying. I was looking for more criticism of the wars the USA enters than what sometimes felt like only a critique of how the US military is structured. While the horror of PTSD was strongly conveyed, I wanted the book to say more. However, the pacing and tension kept me reading. It was a perfect balance of drama that kept me on the edge of my seat, and the mind-numbing mundane of enlistment that somehow never made the book boring.