FROM THIS MOMENT ON, YOU'RE A BEAR CUB. YOU'LL LEARN RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT. HOW TO SURVIVE. IT'S EASIER IF YOU JUST ACCEPT IT.
Dawn isn't a bad person--she's just made some bad choices: wrong guy, wrong friends, wrong everything. But she wasn't expecting her parents to pay a boatload of money to ship her off to OUT OF THE WILD, a wilderness boot camp with a bunch of other messed up kids to learn important "life lessons." It's true that Dawn and the other cubs will learn a lot--but it's not what any of them expect. Because what happens in the woods isn't what their parents planned. Sometimes plans go very wrong. And this is one of those times. Suddenly Dawn is more scared than she's ever been in her life. And you will be too.
Dawn isn't coping very well since the death of her father. Her mother and stepfather, worried for her, have her committed to an outward bound therapy centre. Dawn decides to play along until she can get out, but an accident turns everything on its head, and she's suddenly fighting far more than the elements to keep herself safe.
Dawn isn't coping very well since the death of her father. Her mother and stepfather, worried for her, have her committed to an outward bound therapy centre. Dawn decides to play along until she can get out, but an accident turns everything on its head, and she's suddenly fighting far more than the elements to keep herself safe.
I love the writing style of this book. The narrator frequently addresses the reader, almost chatting to us, reminding us of details we may have forgotten and dropping hints about upcoming events. The story itself is written in present tense, which makes it feel very immediate and urgent.
The idea of the camp itself seems weird to me; the hikes don't seem safe, and even before everything else goes wrong one of the campers falls afoul of a bear. One of the campers is definitely unsuitable to be around children and it's hard to believe they'd keep running hikes in the kinds of weather described in the story. However, the worst weather hits only after everything else has been upset, so there's probably a protocol that simply never got activated.
The fast pace meant we didn't learn a lot about the characters, but I liked what we did learn about them. There was never a lot of mystery about who the bad guys were, but that wasn't the point of this story; it wasn't about the mystery, it was about the tension, and it delivers really well on that front.
This is a great, tense read for teenagers.
I received a free copy and choose to give an honest review.
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