I Will Survive On My Own, Thankyouverymuch

Published:  August 2nd, 2012

Survive

By: Alex Morel

Razorbill

ISBN-13: 9781595145109

Hatchet meets Lost in this modern-day adventure tale of one girl's reawakening

Jane is on a plane on her way home to Montclair, New Jersey, from a mental hospital. She is about to kill herself. Just before she can swallow a lethal dose of pills, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black. Jane wakes up amidst piles of wreckage and charred bodies on a snowy mountaintop. There is only one other survivor: a boy named Paul, who inspires Jane to want to fight for her life for the first time.

Jane and Paul scale icy slopes and huddle together for warmth at night, forging an intense emotional bond. But the wilderness is a vast and lethal force, and only one of them will survive.

Review

   Jane comes from a really dysfunctional family - both her Grandma and her Dad killed themselves because of mental illness.  Now Jane has attempted at least twice, so she's been packed off to the hospital where she has to convince the Doctors that she is well enough to go home again.  But Jane is just playing along, so that once she's out of there she manage to actually kill herself without any interference.  On the plane ride home for Christmas, Jane's in the bathroom with her pills getting ready when turbulence knocks her out.  Upon waking up Jane figures out that the plane has crashed and she and the guy next to her, Paul, were the only two that survived.  Now it's up to them to figure out a way to survive until the rescue crews can find them.  In the meantime will Jane figure out that she never really wanted to die and fight for her life for the first time ever?   I went into this book thinking that it was a winner for sure.  A survivalist fiction story, with a heroine who starts out like Charlie in LOST and ends up wanting to live?  If done right, it could have been phenomenal.  It was very sub-par in the way it turned out.  I was majorly disappointed that Jane wasn't really depressed and only treated suicide like a freaking family tradition.  That was very poorly done.  How can you sympathize as a reader with someone whose thought process is that ridiculously stupid???  Then there was the romance with Paul.  It got on my nerves that they barely knew each other, they were both pretty messed up (not to mention he was old enough that she was jailbait) and they ended up falling in 'love' and sleeping together.   Then one of them DIES.  What the hell?!!  The survivalist parts were few and far between compared to the boring build-up and this novel just didn't compare to the expectations that I had built up for it in my mind.  Not one I would recommend for fans of more hardcore books like the Hatchet series, or My Side of the Mountain (which I never considered hardcore per se before reading this piece of trash).  This is a romance masquerading as a survival story.  If you like that sort of thing, have at it by all means.  If not, avoid it like the plague.

VERDICT:  1.5/5  Stars

*  I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie. No favors or money were exchanged for this review.   This book became available for purchase on August 2nd, 2012.*

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean...

Expected Publication:  August 21st, 2012

The Raft

By: S.A. Bodeen

Feiwel and Friends

ISBN-13: 9780312650100

Robie is an experienced traveler. She’s taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll, a group of Pacific islands where her parents live, many times. When she has to get to Midway in a hurry after a visit with her aunt in Hawaii, she gets on the next cargo flight at the last minute. She knows the pilot, but on this flight, there’s a new co-pilot named Max. All systems are go until a storm hits during the flight. The only passenger, Robie doesn’t panic until the engine suddenly cuts out and Max shouts at her to put on a life jacket. They are over miles of Pacific Ocean. She sees Max struggle with a raft. 

And then . . . she’s in the water. Fighting for her life. Max pulls her onto the raft, and that’s when the real terror begins. They have no water. Their only food is a bag of Skittles. There are sharks. There is an island. But there’s no sign of help on the way.

Review

   Robie has been having a blast visiting her Aunt in Hawaii, but when her Aunt has to leave suddenly on business Robie is told that she has to go home.  She manages to talk her Aunt into just having a friend check up on her, but after being accosted by a homeless man Robie freaks out and decides to go home after all.  Catching a cargo flight at the last minute, Robie is on her way home to her small island.  Then a major storm hits knocking out the engine, causing her and the co-pilot Max to abandon flight for an emergency raft.  Now they must figure out a way to survive with no food other than a bag of Skittles, no fresh water and no obvious rescue in sight.  They find an island to wait on for rescue, but it might be too late by then.  Will Max and Robie both make it home alive?  This book intrigued me because of the fact that it is survivalist fiction in the tradition of Hatchet, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite books.  So I decided to try it out and was really hoping that I would like it a lot better than I actually did.  In the beginning of the book Robie is a just okay character and she quickly denigrates into highly useless, annoying and a major coward.  Poor Max is dependent on her to make sure he doesn't die and Robie does a HORRIBLE job!  After he threw her out of the plane to save her instead of rescuing the pilot, you think she'd be a little more grateful.  She steals the Skittles for herself and when the island gets in sight, she leaves an unconscious Max to fend for himself.  I was bored by all of the sleeping and whining that Robie does throughout her time on the raft.  Yes, it was realistic but it did nothing to further my interest in continuing the book.  I wanted more excitement and more pro activeness.  It's like Robie doesn't even care enough about their survival to try and be innovative.   Plus, when she has opportunities to eat something on the island she's more worried about the cute little animals then her survival.  Give me a break!  After a week of barely anything in your stomach, a seal's life is more important than yours?  Yeah freaking' right!!!  I really HATED the plot twist involving Max and whether or not he survives.  BORING and predictable.  Yes, this book has some exciting action and a really good premise.  But I'm not in it for realism and slow-moving, immature characters.  I want something that has heart-pounding, back-breaking action.  I did not get that from this book.  

VERDICT:  2.6/5  Stars

*I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie.  No favors or money were exchanged for this review.  It will be available for purchase on August 21st, 2012.*