Book review - 15 Secrets to Survival

 

Title: 15 Secrets to Survival

Author: Natalie D Richards

Genre: realistic fiction

Similar books: Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes

                      Out of Range by Heidi Lang

Rating:

 

one to think about

Summary (provided by publisher): When classmates Baxter, Abigail, Turner and Emerson break a school rule, they’re forced to travel to the middle of nowhere for an extra credit project. They think things can’t get much worse. After all, how will learning to survive in the wilderness help them stay out of trouble in school?
   What starts off as a weekend of team building takes a scary turn when their instructor goes missing and they are given nothing but pages of a survival guide to complete a series of challenges.
     They soon learn the woods around them have unexpected surprises. Will they discover a way to work together to find their teacher and overcome the dangers of winter in the mountains?

My opinion: As a rule, I'm a fan of survival stories. Personally I prefer the solo survivalist but when you get a book like this one, where a survival scenario forces disparate kids to work together, it achieves something different. Now, this book differs from the genre standard in that their scenario is, at least initially, organized. It's planned. This adds in elements of a puzzle plot, a type that tends to go over well with young readers. It's also the element of this book that give me the most pause. Because the book is built on the idea of these kids put in a potentially dangerous situation by someone they barely know. For an adult reader, it's full of red flags. The plot itself is decent, not terribly unexpected or complex. So it's a decent read that might spark some conversation but not one that would be my go-to first choice.

More information: 15 Secrets to Survival releases November 7 

Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley