The River by Gary Paulsen

I've only recently become a fan of Gary Paulsen. I avoided reading him in High School, and in my YA literature classes in college. Being a girl, he just didn't seem like my type of author. When my husband came into the store one day, and selected some Paulsen books, he did nothing but rave about them while he read them. So I broke down, and starting from the beginning, I read Hatchet, and then Brian's Winter, and then my most recent, The River.

Some kind of primitive something must have been sparked in me when I read the first two, because I absolutely loved them, so I went into The River with great enthusiasm. I have to admit, though, that I was mildly disappointed in the book. It was still a very good book, but the swiftness of its ending was just so abrupt. Of course, it wasn't just the ending that I didn't like. Perhaps my dislike was my own fault, because I feel that I should not have read Brian's Winter so soon. The things Brian did in The River were not things he would have done had Brian's Winter been more than speculation by Paulsen. His decisions were too brash and uneducated, and his trust in a technology even so low as maps was too much.

I will definitely continue to read the books about Brian, but I feel that The River will be a blip in that adventure.

--Brittany