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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
I like a good travelogue. This was not that. This was someone making bad decisions (he was more or less a teenager, so that at least sort of excuses that part I guess), getting lost to the surprise of no one, and surviving pretty much miraculously. I somewhat struggled to believe it- I've read a few South American jungle travel books - [b:The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey|78508|The River of Doubt Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey|Candice Millard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1430014768s/78508.jpg|980007] and [b:River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon|9152282|River of Darkness Francisco Orellana's Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon|Buddy Levy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320390342s/9152282.jpg|14031215] spring to mind - and finding food isn't usually very easy. Eating random things usually ends poorly. And the other guy being saintly enough to come back for this dude? Wow.
I am so sick of people who have an interesting story to tell, and then cannot write about it. At all. This book was so horribly written, than I glossed over most of it and skimmed to the epilogue. BOR-ING! Get a ghost writer. Take a course in writing interesting characters. The people in this were so flat.
Some people just can't tell a story, and this guy is one of them. I feel bad for his misfortune, but seriously, dude can't write an interesting sentence to save his life.
Some people just can't tell a story, and this guy is one of them. I feel bad for his misfortune, but seriously, dude can't write an interesting sentence to save his life.
I picked up a copy after watching the recent film adaptation starring Daniel Radcliffe (simply called Jungle). Turns out that the film was a very accurate adaptation, honouring most details of the book.
A lot of reviews I've seen did not find Yossi and his companions to be likable. Although I feel the same to a point, I think Yossi writes in such an open, humble way that I did not find him abrasive. His tale is literally incredible, and a fascinating experience to be taken through as a reader. For anyone with an interest in exploration and/or accounts of survival against all odds (and a strong stomach) I highly recommend this.
A lot of reviews I've seen did not find Yossi and his companions to be likable. Although I feel the same to a point, I think Yossi writes in such an open, humble way that I did not find him abrasive. His tale is literally incredible, and a fascinating experience to be taken through as a reader. For anyone with an interest in exploration and/or accounts of survival against all odds (and a strong stomach) I highly recommend this.
DNF at page 100.
Good grief, what book were all these other raters reading? The writing is so basic and clunky. The level of writing is comparable to a junior high student. At 100 pages in nothing had happened. I flipped through 30 more pages, still nothing.
This just isn’t the “harrowing” tale I expected. Just take me to the jungle right away. I don’t care about all this irrelevant stuff that happened beforehand. I’m not invested in this guy or any of his fellow travelers because we get no internal insight on the writer. It’s like “this happened, then this happened, and then this happened, some lengthy bit about something that is irrelevant, some unnatural dialogue here, another tangent here, then this happened, irrelevant tangent, okay, we’re heading to the jungle and this is page 100.”
This book probably should’ve been half the length and gotten to the story way sooner. It was so bad I couldn’t even force myself to keep going to find out what the harrowing parts were. The writing feels so forced and the dialogue feels robotic, meaning these don’t sound like words that were spoken. Maybe I’ll watch the movie?
Also, he writes stuff like “retarded looking dwarf” and “he looked retarded.” He has sex with a girl but then says he never contacts her again because he doesn’t feel like it. Okay?
Good grief, what book were all these other raters reading? The writing is so basic and clunky. The level of writing is comparable to a junior high student. At 100 pages in nothing had happened. I flipped through 30 more pages, still nothing.
This just isn’t the “harrowing” tale I expected. Just take me to the jungle right away. I don’t care about all this irrelevant stuff that happened beforehand. I’m not invested in this guy or any of his fellow travelers because we get no internal insight on the writer. It’s like “this happened, then this happened, and then this happened, some lengthy bit about something that is irrelevant, some unnatural dialogue here, another tangent here, then this happened, irrelevant tangent, okay, we’re heading to the jungle and this is page 100.”
This book probably should’ve been half the length and gotten to the story way sooner. It was so bad I couldn’t even force myself to keep going to find out what the harrowing parts were. The writing feels so forced and the dialogue feels robotic, meaning these don’t sound like words that were spoken. Maybe I’ll watch the movie?
Also, he writes stuff like “retarded looking dwarf” and “he looked retarded.” He has sex with a girl but then says he never contacts her again because he doesn’t feel like it. Okay?
adventurous
medium-paced
I struggled with how to rate this. The story and the events that happened in the jungle were interesting, and I'm a sucker for adventure/survival stories; but the sheer stupidity of everyone involved was absolutely infuriating! Also, despite everything that occurred, I found it slow and dry in some parts. My interest was piqued in the epilogue when he discussed everything he had done for conservation in the area after his rescue. I was familiar with the ecolodge the author started prior to reading the book, but didn't realize the connection until the end!
I read the book after watching the adaptation years ago. It was really exciting to read Yossi's story of how he survived in the jungle for so long. What a life he has lived!
It was a great story but not great writing. Some parts dragged on too long but at the end of the day he wasn't meant to be an author !
Yossi Ghinsberg's "Lost in the Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival" tells the story of Ghinsberg's trip into the Bolivian jungle and his three weeks surviving alone after being separated from his friends. As a survival story, it is pretty amazing as Ghinsberg survives starvation, jaguars, torrential rains and bugs before he is rescued. In that way the story is compelling. However, it was difficult to like the book because I so disliked Yossi -- who created a good portion of his own troubles and fell in with someone who was very obviously at best a con man. He appears to feel little remorse about one of his comrades, who was likely murdered (an idea that Ghinsberg doesn't even seem to entertain...) My dislike for the narrator definitely lessened my enjoyment of this book.
Go get lost in the jungle Yossi, do it with grace and then live to tell of the delerium encountered after countless days without food or shelter.