Turner Garland

Turner Garland
Hachet
Gary Paulsen
Realistic Fiction
Holiday
Just Finished

           1. I recently finished Hachet by Gary Paulsen. This book is about a boy named Brian Robeson, who's parents are divorced. Brian is traveling from his moms house in New York to his dad's house in Canada. He is flying there by plane when suddenly the pilot has a fatal heart attack. Brian then takes over the plane crashing it in a lake in the middle of the canadian wilderness. As Brian struggles to survive in the woods with only a hatchet that his mother had given him he dreams of his parents and the secrets between that caused the divorce. I thought that the end of this book was very good. Although I like the ending I do wish that the author could have made the book a little bit longer. In the ending, Brian swims out to where the plane crashed in the lake and searches for the survival bag that had been loaded onto the small bush plane. Brian gets the bag and once he gets back to his camp he pulls out the seemingly endless supply of food and tools. Once Brian had unpack the survival bag his rescuer comes.  
The pilot gets out of the plane in total shock. He talks for a short bit with Brian about how the rescue planes stopped looking for him two months ago. This ending was very satisfying for me and probably would be for many other readers.

            2. Felt really good about this book while I was reading. The discoveries the Brian made about how to survive drew me in. I could hardly put this exciting book down. The author put right into the shoes of Brian and it made me think about how I would react if I were in the same situation. Every time Brian would improve something, like his hunting skills, fishing skills, or his shelter, got me thinking about how I would tackle the problems. I personally liked Brian a lot. I could truly connect with him that I haven't been able to with other characters in other books. Being boy scout I could understand the survival technics much better. I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend to everybody.

           3. The theme that I felt was in most prominent throughout the entire book is will to survive. From the plane crash in the beginning to when Brian goes out and gets the survival bag towards the end, Brian will do anything to survive in the tough environment. After the bush pilot has the stroke Brian had to take over the plane. He recalls everything he knows about flying and he goes in for a landing in a lake where he thought would give him the greatest chance of surviving. Without Brian's will to survive he would have never survived the crash. When Brian was in need of food he built a spear to try and spear fish. After hours and hours of trying to get fish to eat he remembers that light refracts light. Then aims a bit lower and he kills is first fish. Brian would not have lasted more than two weeks if he hadn't had will to survive. This important theme shapes the entire book and without it, this book wouldn't be one of my favorites.

           4. In this book there aren't many characters. The only character that the author describes is Brian. Brian is basically the only character in the book but I really liked his personality. There are many things that I liked about Brian but the main thing is his intelligence. Even though he was a city boy he still could remember many survival technics that helped him stay alive. Another thing that I liked about Brian is his determination. After a hurricane strikes his shelter and ruins everything he had built he still holds the determination to rebuild.

            5.  Brian is the only character that readers got to know while reading this book. I liked Brian a lot so I didn't have a least favorite character while reading this book. I liked Brian but there was one thing that I did not like about him. I didn't like how the author constantly said that Brian recalled the TV show he watched, or the movie, or even the book he had read. By doing this it made it seem like all Brian did back in New York City was watch movies,TV shows, and read.

             6. As I said before I liked the ending of this book. The ending was interesting but it was also very predictable. I was pretty for almost half the book that someone would find him in the end. When I thought about the end I thought of helicopters, or other bush planes coming. While reading there were really only two outcomes: Either found or not found. I thought that Brian would be found because throughout the book he talks about the secret and the divorce of his parents. If he didn't get found I feel like the book would be unfinished. The book ended at about the same spot that I had thought. After Brian had got the survival bag, living in the woods would get much easier with the supplies he got. If the author did not end the book around there it wouldn't have the same adventure and survival aspect to it.