Hatchet- Gary Paulsen

I read this book because I thought it might be a good book for my son to read.

I hated it.

It's about a boy who is riding in a plane to visit his father.
He is the only passenger.
On the way the pilot has a heart attack and dies.
The plane crashes in the middle of the Canadian wilderness.
The book is about how he survives (catches fish and birds, builds shelter, etc.)

This might have been a decent book for my son to read, BUT there's a few disturbing situations. For one, the boy tries to commit suicide with his hatchet. The boy also knows a secret. He caught his mother having an affair with another man. She doesn't know he saw. His father doesn't know. He wrestles with the decision to tell or not.

Besides that, the book is boring in more than one place, there is not much resolution when it comes to his making a decision about "the secret" he knows about his mother, and the ending is very weak, IMO.

Most Amazon reviewers liked it but this is one time I have to disagree with them. :-)

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