Survive

by Alex Morel

[Amber]

3.5 stars, I think.

I really liked the message it sends, but the characters were pretty annoying and they did stupid things.

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This is a slightly newer novel which I have been wanting to read for quite a while now. I love survival stories, and I was expecting this to be awesome. It did turn out to be a good book, but it was nothing outstanding, unfortunately.

The events that occurred in this novel once the characters were on the mountain were VERY coincidental. Which they had to be, if the story was to go forward. But I had a tough time accepting some of the things that happened. One of the things I had trouble accepting was the fact that only two characters survived the plane crash, Jane and Paul, and luckily Paul was an avid rock climber! This meant that Paul knew exactly what to do in this situation, and there wasn't much of a learning process for Jane, as she just got told what to and what not to do.

Another minor problem I had was the two characters smoking a cigarette while still on the mountain. Smoking a cigarette while dehydrated is definitely not a good idea, and I don't know why they thought it was. Is there something wrong with them? I mean, if they had given up hope then I would have understood, but they were still pretty determined to survive.

That said, I really did like the overall message that was in this book about the value of life. I almost got a bit teary eyed at the end over some things that were said concerning wanting to live.

This is by no means a bad book, and I definitely liked it, but it's not something I would recommend to everyone and I wouldn't reread it.