I was very interested in the first two-thirds of this book. I became invested in Zack's story and wanted to learn more about the factors contributing to the crime. The last third of the book fell far short of what I was expecting. It felt as if the last third of the book should have been mixed in the with the first part. By the time I finished reading the statistics and "explanation" behind Zack's troubles and crime, I had almost forgotten about him. There was a serious downturn in momentum. Since I'm reading an "Early Reviewer's" edition, it could be that this was worked out in the final product. One never got the feeling that PTSD and Katrina recovery were flushed out as much as they could have been. Either Mr. Brown couldn't give enough time to both topics or they should have been in two separate books. In the end, there were some very captivating parts of the book and I was espcially interested in the author's move to New Orleans but the last portion of the book did not live up to the build-up and there were many unanswered questions and avenues. ( )

http://www.fnordinc.com/2009/11-21/bo...

i did not enjoy this book but my wife did.
after 3 chapters, i was wishing i had never started it. being a true crime buff, i thought this would be up my alley, but really couldnt get into it.

my wife however, clearly liked this. it is not one that she would have picked up on her own. she stated that it should be read for the story, but if no other reason exists, to raise awareness of how our troops are mistreated and psychologically damaged/misdiagnosed upon their return to home after wartime.

personally, i think i can get the same perspective from a book about the reagan era and an afternoon watching Rambo films.

perhaps in a year, i will be able to finish this book.
my 1 star and her 4 star equates 2.5 rating listed here.

- FNORDinc.com ( )

By the end of this book I had considerably less sympathy for Zack Bowen than I would have thought. It is easy to blame PTSD/Katrina, but thousands of people lived through similar experiences and didn't murder anyone. The tragedy of the murder-suicide resulted from choices made by Bowen. Bowen's self-centered act left behind two families, his own and Addie's, who have to live with the consequences. I enjoyed New Orleans as a "character" in this book a great deal more than the humans. ( )

A story of tragedy, sympathy, and horror - Shake the Devil Off follows the post-Katrina, post-Iraq War life of a man named Zack Bowen. Coming home to New Orleans after the war, Bowen finds himself in the midst of a failed marriage along with suffering from PTSD. After his marriage ends, though, he finds love once again with Addie, whom later ends up being the victim in Bowen's murder-suicide case.

I feel as though something in the story was left out - we do not know about Bowen's family and their reaction to his crime, we do not know about the fate of his children, and we have no clue as to what Addie's family thought about this tragedy. The story - although incomplete and lacking - sucked me in from beginning to end. Zack Bowen wasn't depicted so much as a murderer, but of an actual person, with feelings and emotion as well. ( )

For a non-fiction book, this read like a novel. Ethan Brown thoroughly researched his subject, and the major players in this tragedy are well-developed "characters" with three-dimensional personalities. I read with a mix of sympathy and horror. I am sorry that this tragedy seems to have been caused by some of this country's gravest mistakes. Because of these mistakes, I expected a preachy tone, but Brown writes objectively. ( )

This book surprised me - first, because it was really a good read and second, because by the end of the book, I had a picture of Zack Bowen as a person, not just as a murdering monster.

The book is about a horrific murder/suicide that happened in New Orleans post-Katrina. The author does a great job giving the reader a complete picture of Zack, and really gets at some of the forces that could have caused him to kill and dismember his girlfriend. That strength is also my criticism of the book - where is the voice of Addie, the woman who was killed? There is far more detail about Zack's history than Addie. I would have liked to learn more about her and her history. For example, there are no interviews with her family. If the family wouldn't speak to the author, I wish he would have told us that instead of mysteriously leaving it out.

The two chapters about the military and Katrina towards the end of the book are the weakest, I think. The author makes some good and important points about how experiences in the military in the early days of the Iraq war and experiences in New Orleans in the days after Katrina mirror each other. He lays out how they both could serve as flashpoints/accelerators to PTSD, but I wish he would have woven them into the story better. The whole rest of the book reads like a biography, and then those chapters start with the statistics... it's a whole different style of writing, and I'm not sure that it gels with the book as a whole.

I do like the end, how the author inserts himself into the story. I like his acknowledgment that living in New Orleans and researching the story changed him and caused him to fall in love with New Orleans, despite its devils. It brought back to me that, as much as I sometimes wanted the book to be fiction, it just wasn't. I liked the symmetry that acknowledged experiences change people. Sometimes those were experiences like the Iraq war and Katrina, that led Zack to a horrible, unforgivable place. But sometimes, our experiences that lead to a positive change, that lead the author to fall in love with the city and all its caring.

Shake The Devil Off was a very powerful non-fiction read. Ethan Brown the author does a great job of describing a young mans life (Zack Bowen) from young adult hood, to early marriage and children, to enlisting in the Army, going off to war, returning from war, getting divorced, falling in love again, brutally killing his girlfriend and committing suicide. Ethan Brown does a great job of showing how his government failed Zack; he does a poor job of showing how his friends and family failed him. I would recommend this book but Ethan Brown's politics (he hates George Bush, and thinks ever one in New Orleans should be supported by the other 49 states) distracts from this powerful story.

After tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, Zack Bowen went home to New Orleans only to face Hurricane Katrina. Haunted by both his military and storm experiences he killed his girlfriend, Addie Hall, and then committed suicide, leaving behind a stunned city and a devastated group of family and friends.

Like the central person in this book, the narrative has a lot of ups and downs. Brown seems to flail in the beginning as he tries to eulogize a person and a situation he doesn't quite understand. He finds firmer ground as he recounts Zack's tours overseas, interviewing the soldiers that shared his experiences. A new husband and father, Zack finds himself torn between his duty to his country and more importantly to his comrades, and his very ill wife and two small children. When the Army denies his request to join his wife on a German base as she undergoes life-threatening treatment for hepatitis, Zack's positive attitude towards the military is replaced with seething anger. This anger only underscores his disagreement with the two wars, and eventually Zack quietly decides to get out of the military. Despite an impressive service record, he is discharged for failure to do an adequate number of push-ups and his discharge denies him much-need veterans benefits.

From there, Zack's life begins a downward spiral. He and his wife separate and he hooks up with Addie, a mercurial bartender in the French Quarter. Zack supports himself delivering groceries and tending bar and his girlfriend does much the same. When Katrina hits New Orleans the couple hunkers down and actually turns the whole experience into an adventure. Their freedom ends when military forces finally arrive in NO to restore order. From there, Zack and Addie's relationship grows increasingly turbulent and ends in a murder-suicide that no one saw coming.

In the last third of the book, Brown theorizes that Zack suffered from undiagnosed PTSD and that had he been given adequate medical care none of this would have happened. The last several chapters are devoted to the staggering murder rate in NO, the military's unwillingness to help its vets, and Brown's own inexplicable love for NO. Brown, who moved to NO to research and write the book and wound up staying, writes a lot about his own feelings and experiences in NO and the French Quarter.

While the evidence about the lack of mental health care for military personnel is compelling and the murder statistics for NO are mind-boggling, the chapters on them feel like they belong in another book. Had Brown incorporated more of these facts and anecdotes throughout the earlier chapters they would have seemed more relevant and the book would have flowed better. Brown's own story of moving to NO and falling in love with the people of NO is worthy of an epilogue, but did not belong in the body of the book. In the final chapters, Brown seems to merely use Zack and Addie's story as a way to preach about the corruption and apathy in both the US government and the New Orleans government and police force. While those factors are relevant to the story, it is the human story of these two people that draws readers.

Overall, this book feels incomplete. We are left without knowing the fate of Zack's wife and two small children. We do not know how his mother and brother have dealt with Zack's death or his horrific actions. No one from Addie's family is even interviewed regarding her death and there is no explanation as to why. There is no way to answer all the questions about this story, but some of the most basic ones are not even asked. ( )

An extraordinary nonfiction book that focuses on a horrible crime, life in New Orleans pre and post Katrina, and concerns about life after war for veterans returning from Iraq. While I understand that the author was drawing parallels between returning war veterans and Katrina survivors as well as the governments response to each, I do wish that Addie was given more of a voice. ( )

This is the reporting of a horrifying event that took place in New Orleans in October of 2006. The event was the suicide of a veteran of the Iraq war. He threw himself from the roof of the la Riviera, landing on the roof of the Omni Royal's parking garage. This even was the culmination of a long series of events that Zach Bowen was unable to deal with, and PTSD that he was unable to overcome.

The story is given to us in the emotionless voice of a journalist, and there are many details given. The information was gleaned from other members of the military who served with Zach in Iraq, friends and neighbors. More information was found during extensive research that is recorded in the end notes of this book.

While reading, I kept hoping that I had misunderstood, and that this was just a novel. Then after checking, I had to come to grips with the fact that this story may have been the story of the life and death of Zach Bowen, but there were many veterans who had shared similar experiences and had their lives affected in similar ways.

One of the incidents reported described a visit G.W.Bush made to Iraq. Zach was one of the member of the 527th MPCo. Before leaving the troops were asked if anyone had any questions. Despite the implication that Zach felt that no one was expected to ask, he raised his hand. He asked his commander in chief if there was any hope that those fighting this war could have access to more potable water. They had just come off of a time where only one bottle of water was made available to each service person a day. The presidents response of how glad he was that the war was being fought outside of the United States was baffling and unhelpful. No one asked any further questions.

Things did not get better for Zach when he came home. His marriage fell apart, his hometown was laid waste by Hurricane Katrina, jobs were hard to come by, but drugs sadly were not.

He seemed to struggle with loneliness and depression, until finally it all erupted. He murdered and dismembered his girlfriend. On his body was a suicide note telling police of his crime and where to find Addie's body.

There is so much more to this story. The story of Katrina, New Orleans and her people and the struggle to regain the lives that had been shattered when the hurricane hit. The struggle to once again find hope. ( )