Never Fall Down is about a young boy named Arn who has to learn at a young age how to survive in very rough conditions. Arn’s village is forced to move to a rice farm, where the Khmer Rouge treat them harshly and then separate them from their families. Arn has to witness deaths on a regular basis. Arn becomes fairly important to the Khmer Rouge; they use him to deliver letters to other towns/ rice farms. Shortly after Arn becomes important, he gains more importance, as he and a couple of his friends learn how to fight with the Khmer Rouge against the Vietnamese. Arn becomes a part of a special group who would spy on the Vietnamese for the Khmer Rouge. During the war, Arn decides to escape from his group and travel to Thailand. He then ends up at an orphanage. A man finds him and brings him to America to speak about the Cambodians being persecuted. Arn struggles throughout the whole book; first when he was separated from his family, he had a really hard time functioning by himself without them by his side. He did get through every struggle and it made him so much stronger every time. He continuously had to make difficult decisions, which also made him smarter and again stronger.

  Arn had a ton of courage in this book; he fought in a war that wasn’t his to fight, he led his group to victory and risked his life for his true friends. Arn taught me a lot about friendship and the importance of family. When he was separated from his family it proved how much he cared. With his friends, he cared for them like they were his brothers. He took care of them when they needed him. He sacrificed his own life in order to feed his friends who were starving. Towards the end of the book it began to drag on for too long and not enough was happening to keep me interested, but that was the only time. Otherwise, it was very well written and flowed well together. Overall it was a really great book and if you are looking at reading this book I highly recommend it!