Basically, the odd-numbered chapters are the action, unfolding, and the even-numbered chapters are the backstory. This made it kind of confusing, because some of the odd chapters reference stuff in the even chapters that we hadn't gotten to yet. However, it did keep me reading, because I immediately wanted to know "are they going to be okay?" and waded through intermittent school drama to get more of the unfolding story, whereas if it had just been "first half of the book is school drama, second half is action" I probably would have DNF'd the book out of frustration. What I'm trying to say here is basically: it worked, Heidi Lang.
The book's about three sisters--Abby, Emma, and Ollie--who have been utter jerks to each other for the past year or so. Their parents sent them to a wilderness camp with no cell phone service or stuff like that, so they could learn to get along. The camp did not, in fact, teach them to get along. However, getting lost in the wilderness for a couple days takes care of that problem nicely.
Parts of it strained my credulity, especially the fact that |a wildfire forced the main characters to run off into the wilderness to escape it, but then it's not really mentioned again. Maybe it was| a potato soup fire or something. The story kind of jumps from one hazard to the next, and none of them have any real lasting effect on their struggle to survive (well, except for |the fallout from Emma almost drowning|, which still only lasts a couple chapters). Basically, everything menaced them for a bit and then ended suddenly. And I get why, because this situation still has to be realistically survivable, but surely there are ways to make it realistically survivable without resorting to making the situation unrealistic.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E, probably. Although I might possibly rate it E10+ for, as my mom would put it, "scenes of peril".
Sadly, I must give this book 3 stars, because most of the "how did we get here" was set against the backdrop of scohol drama ("scohol" is an intentional misspelling of "school", btw), which I happen to dislike. The other reason, the one this got demoted to 3 stars instead of 4, is that as mentioned above, it strained my credulity.
I do not have any favorite lines.
(Endnote: I've intentionally misspelled "school" as "scohol" in one of my other posts, too. Do you remember which one?)
Haha! I don't remember you writing "scohol" before, but that IS the way it sounds when pronounced derogatorily.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of how I will sometimes describe a character as s(h)ad to emphasize how, when I say someone is sad and mean they are extremely mournful and have very miserable things in their past, I draw the word out and put a "hhh" sound in it.
The other "scohol" is in the review of Saving Mr. Terupt. And yes, I mostly use "scohol" when disapproving of books set in public school.
DeleteI recently read a book that went every other chapter - the first was placed in WW II, the next was placed in the current time, and it continued that way throughout the whole book. It was pretty confusing at first, but after I got used to it I really enjoyed it! Grammy
ReplyDeleteYup, that's basically how it went for me.
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