If We Survive by Andrew Klavan
My rating: 3/5 cats
i read this because i was curious how christian themes would assert themselves in a survival story with guns and revolutionaries and the dangers of the jungle, and i was wondering how far the “turn the other cheek” and “the meek shall inherit the earth” would hold up in a pressure cooker.
better than you would think, but don’t worry—“the lord helps those who help themselves,” so this is not a “sit around and wait for divine intervention” kind of story. there is plenty of action, and i think it is a good book for those reluctant reader boys who are smart, but just don’t really like to sit down and read. because while there are a lot of great action sequences, there is also a fair bit of deeper-meaning stuff—some political, some self-reflective, and, yes, some religious, so it is a touch more substantial a story than a lot of the books geared towards the reluctant male YA crowd with the “piew piew piew!” (those are laser-gun noises)
the religious elements are definitely present; there is a pastor character, a lot of praying, and some ruminating about the soul and man’s limitations and possibilities in the greater plan of the divine.
but it wasn’t overly distracting. it does slow down the pacing, but my concern before reading was that it would be ham-fisted and didactic, and it wasn’t.
to backtrack into plot-territory. our hero, sixteen-year-old will peterson, goes on a philanthropic retreat to build a school for children in costa verde, along with his pastor, and some other kids from his school—a shrill and pretty shallow fancy-girl named nicki, and a boy named jim, who is all starry-eyed for the plight of the revolutionaries and probably has a million posters of che guevara in his bedroom. joining them at the site is a slightly-older woman named meredith, who oozes competence and serenity, and is more like a unicorn than a human girl. ordinarily, a character like this would irritate me, but i really liked her, and i appreciated her calm, but still very brave, presence.
because there is a lot of need for courage. on the day they are scheduled to leave, revolutionaries take over costa verde, and the kids find themselves caught up in a civil war and must rely on the experience of palmer, a bitter ex-marine who was supposed to be their pilot outta there, to guide them to safety. again and again. there are so many dangers to be faced: dinner-plate-sized spiders, snakes, crocodiles (or maybe a caiman), firing squads, heat and thirst, and mendoza, the head of the local revolutionary group, who has it in for them in a big way.
so, naturally, the kids are gonna learn some harsh realities through hardships, and there will be much growth and many challenges and many selfless acts. but it’s not an after-school special. and it’s not super-proselytizing, which was a relief.
occasionally, the “teen-voice” in this rubbed me the wrong way: so many things are “really” this or “really” that, and there is a forced quality to the tumbling, repetitive speech patterns, especially at the beginning, and nicki is mostly just a cardboard “privileged girl has eyes opened in difficult situation” construction, but overall, i liked it, and i thought it was an interesting slant on the typical survival story.
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