The Raft by S.A. Bodeen
My rating: 1/5 cats
NO NO NO
BAD BAD BAD
PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH
spoiler alert: this book is not very good
seriously, i am not the one to come to for one-star cat book reviews. i rarely give a book one star cat. so you know when i hate a book, i HAAAATE a book. and i hated this one with every part of me that there is.
this book has the most infuriating “protagonist” that i have ever encountered, ever. ever.
here’s a quick nature lesson from the book:
The young albatross touched down in the water when they got tired. Some of them didn’t understand they had to fold in their wings, because once their wings got wet, they couldn’t fly. So the stupid ones held their wings out as they sat in the water, but they weren’t strong enough to keep them up for long, so of course they drooped until they touched the water and the feathers got wet.Then the young birds couldn’t take off.
And they were doomed.
this is called “survival of the fittest” in the animal kingdom. and these birds become food for tiger sharks, and cannot live long enough to pass on their “stupid” genes.
so what have we established here? our protagonist is aware that stupid doesn’t survive. so why then, after a plane crash, View Spoiler », leaves her bobbing on a raft in the middle of the ocean, do the following passages occur??
I put the flashlight in my mouth and got up on my knees. I peeled off the wax, said a silent prayer, and pointed the flare towards the direction of the plane. I pulled the fuse and held out the flare with one hand, keeping the other tight on the side of the raft.
Sparks flew out and with a great rushing whistle, the flare went off. And up. The cylinder in my hand was empty.
All the fireworks followed an arc up into the sky where they lasted about ten seconds then dispersed into small stars trickling back down.
My mouth dropped open, and the flashlight fell into the water. “No!” I grabbed for it but it was too late, and could only watch the light spiral down and around, down and around, growing fainter and fainter, then finally fading away.
oh. my. god.
amazing.
but wait.
Taking a deep breath, I put my foot over the side and started to slide out of the raft and into the water. But then I locked my elbows on the edge, refusing to go farther. My weight on the side of the empty raft made it flip over, trapping me underneath.
I screamed and grabbed for the raft, pushing it up. “Get it off! Get it off!” Even though, for the moment, I could breathe just fine within the pocket of air between me and the capsized raft, the feeling of my legs just hanging there, treading, was more than I could take. “Get it off me!” I screamed. I couldn’t stand it anymore and didn’t wait for Max. Instead, I shoved up with all my strength, throwing the raft off me.
As I did, the ditty bag attached to my arm slipped off. I grabbed for it, catching it by the bottom. Red and green and purple and yellow and orange dots rained down around me, some pelting me.
Skittles.
“No!” I scrambled, splashing as I tried to grab them, but they were everywhere, sinking. How could I have forgotten to close the bag?
wow. way to panic unnecessarily and lose your entire food supply. too bad you didn’t close that bag.
With all the birds, there had to be eggs on the island. But even if I did get up the nerve to eat one, there was no way to cook them.
I stubbed my toe and reached down to pick up the blue culprit. A plastic cigarette lighter. I opened my hand and let it drop back to the sand. There were thousands of them on the beaches at midway, and looking around, I saw them everywhere. Useless.
hmmm. it’s like you were just talking about needing fire and then you found a lighter. useless, indeed.
and it’s not like these are the end of her stupid moves.
maybe finish reading the survival at sea card that is right there in the boat with you? i mean, what else are you going to do? instead, she skims it, and misses out on vital information that could have come in handy, oh, days ago.
and maybe obey the instructions, instead of thinking you know better. because you don’t. you have proved that numerous times.
oh, and you just got your nose pierced and were warned against getting seawater in it and now you are trapped at sea on a raft and it is getting infected and painful because of all the seawater? take out your nose ring. for real. just take it out.like you need more discomfort while you are suffering from exposure and all that. dummy.
and all the whining from this terrible klutzy dummy:
–I didn’t want to
–I decided to ignore
–I’m not going back out there
–No. I couldn’t.
–I flung myself onto the wet sand and lay there.
I didn’t have to do anything.
I just had to lie there. Lie there and bleed to death.
Lie there and die.
I didn’t care. I didn’t have to do anything.
I didn’t.
yup. it’s true. you don’t.
and it just keeps going
View Spoiler »sometimes, words fail me.
On my stomach, I started to stroke with my arms as I kicked. But I didn’t like the water coming up in my face, and the ditty bag on my arm hampered my progress. So I flipped over on my back.
Even as a kid, I had done okay on my back.
I breathed out. That was better. Much better. I didn’t feel like anything was dangling.
But I also couldn’t see where I was going, could only guess. I pulled with my arms and kicked for a count of ten, then stopped to turn and see where the raft was.
After doing that three or four times, I realized I wasn’t even gaining on the raft. I might even be losing. So I did the dog paddle, which seemed even slower than my backstroke had been.
Max was close behind me and called out, “You need to swim on your stomach. Just aim for the raft, hold your breath, and go.”
I didn’t want to.
wow. that is nearly slapstick in its inefficiency and teenage whininess. how can you root for this girl? a girl who refused to put on her life vest as the plane was going down and then yelled at the man who threw her out of the plane, saving her life.View Spoiler »
wow. just wow.
this book has some very interesting information about albatrosses, if you are interested, but seems to believe that sharks are stalkers that come about at the most inopportune times to eat stuff you need, when you are adrift at sea. bizarre.
there is more i want to yell about, but i am incredibly drained. i was so looking forward to this book, and i borrowed it from work practically the day it came out and read it on one sitting, but it was the worst one-sitting read i have ever suffered through, and there were many shouts of dismay from me until i decided to just give up on liking it and laugh at it instead.
i feel kind of bad about my one-star cat rating, but i didn’t write the trainwreck, and this book was asking for it.
