She dressed in bohemian clothes, penned novels, panted, and yearned to roam forgotten corners of the world. She was habitually defiant and fearless, and when she felt controlled, as she often did, should could be irresistibly willfull. Mostly, she was bored silly by the vanilla sort boys who trailed her around, and by the stodgy set in Miami Beach.

A favorite of hers was Come On Seabiscuit a 1963 kiddie book. On the irony of writing about physical paragons while being so incapacitated herself Laura Hillenbrand says "I'm looking for a way out of here. Personal life
Hillenbrand suffers from debilitating chronic fatigue syndrome and remains largely confined to her home.

Hillenbrand's second book was Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival Resilience and Redemption (2010) a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. C and rarely leaves her house because of the condition. Hillenbrand married Borden Flanagan a professor of Government at American University and her college sweetheart in 2008.