Hatchet: A Disappointing Novel (With Spoilers) - Abdurrahman

  As a new member of this blog group, I wanted to skim the blogs my new blogmates posted and read a few. While doing so, one blog caught my eye: a book review of Hatchet by my fellow blogmate, Alberto. As I read his exhilarating review of the book, I immediately added this book to my to-be-read list, and here I am with a review of Hatchet. Today, for the first time ever, I am sad to proclaim that my review is mostly a dissatisfied one of Hatchet.

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, was published in 1986. It begins with thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson riding a tiny plane above the Canadian forests, on a trip from New York to visit his father in northern Canada. Suddenly, the pilot he’s sitting next to suffers a fatal heart attack and, soaring above the wilderness at 70,000 feet, he’s alone in a dreadful situation. After the miraculous survival of the crash, which sends the plane deep in a lake, Brian must learn the way of the caveman. With only a hatchet from his mother and the resources around him, he navigates the unforgiving struggles of living in the wild.

Given this summary, you might be really excited about this book, quivering with anticipation on your seat. And I don’t blame you. When I first read about Hatchet from one of Alberto’s previous blogs, I was excited to learn about a young boy’s struggles living in the forests for an extended period of time, expecting mind-boggling, near-death experiences with imminent starvation, wild monsters, illnesses, and an attractive plot. However, I had set my hopes too high.

For the hunger Brian experienced, Gary Paulsen only says that Brian is hungry; he doesn’t show it. Given that there were some long times when Brian barely ate, Paulsen should be describing the feeling of intense rumbling and pain in his stomach. Although Brian does feel a longing for food back home, it doesn’t effectively show the reader the agonizing pain of imminent starvation.

As for “wild monsters,” I was expecting Brian to encounter a load of dangerous animals, like bears and wolves given that he was deep in the wilderness. Surprisingly and disappointingly, Brian only sees one bear that, for some reason, didn’t attack him for his meat, and just left him alone. If I was the author who wanted to utilize every opportunity to make the story more interesting, I’d make the bear attack Brian so the reader is hooked. There was a moose that deliberately tried to kill Brian, but his experiences with it were ephemeral.

I’m surprised Brian didn’t fall ill in Hatchet. He drinks water from a lake. That doesn’t sound very safe. He also eats from his resources, like fish, birds, rabbits, and berries, which all luckily don’t carry any diseases or parasites. It just kept reminding me how unrealistic the story was.

There was also the plot. It was very dull, devoid of any major events that contribute to a climax. Heck, there wasn’t even a climax! As I got closer to the end of the story, I lost all motivation to read it. The book ends so abruptly and incompletely that it finally convinced me to write a negative review of Hatchet.

Although I was overall very disappointed with the book, there were some nice aspects that helped bolster my motivation to read Hatchet. It was fascinating to see how Brian managed to build his shelter and create his arrows, bows, and campfire. It was also intriguing to see the different methods he used to hunt for food. I discovered that an important moral from Hatchet was that mistakes are crucial to your learning. Brian makes critical mistakes that almost cost his life, but after each one, he learns something vital to his survival. Hatchet can be considered as a coming-of-age novel, where Brian develops and practices many skills throughout his time at the woods.

I believe Hatchet isn’t one of the better books I’ve read. The negative aspects, which outweighed the positive ones, deprived me of a lot of interest while reading this book. I have to emphasize that there are positive features of the story, but they aren’t profound. Nevertheless, if you want to read Hatchet, go ahead–I’m not stopping you. Just don’t set your hopes too high like I did. The rating I’d give is a 6.75/10.