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A review by silentcat7135
I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall
4.0
Briefly, I enjoyed the gritty survival parts of the story, which is the basis for the 4 stars. Hated the father and his living-out-here-in-the-wild-will-make-you-strong-and-whole attitude when his daughter was not just missing her former life but also receiving needed post-accident physiotherapy back in civilization. Another good dog .
And now a very, very long rant about one minor thing that distractingly bothered me while reading: She's a 16-year-old girl. The man who flies in to bring her father supplies periodically explains that he won't be back for maybe up to a year. There's no mention of bringing a year's worth of tampons or any other feminine hygiene supplies. The only mention of periods is one brief mention that she hasn't had one since arriving there. It's plausible that her periods would stop once she is in survival mode based on stress and lack of enough food, but before that? And even if her periods did stop, it's not something that could have been counted on, so she would need supplies. Or some awkward conversation with her father about expecting her to use washable/reusable supplies. Or moss. I remember in North of Normal, an excellent memoir by Cea Sunrise Person about her childhood off the grid, that the women used moss of some kind and who were thrilled with a Christmas present of a box of tampons, as one would be. The whole lack of stocking up on tampons for the year with no expected resupplying had my mind wandering to the real-world opposite situation when Sally Ride went into space for 1 week and NASA supplied her with 100 tampons and questioned whether that would be enough, an event immortalized in song by Marcia Belsky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTnQ6N-K05s
Anyway, TL/DR, where are the tampons?
That aside, and the annoying father aside, this was an enjoyable survival story with some quite gritty elements in it. Would not recommend it to anyone squeamish about reading about hunting animals for food, though.
Spoiler
who, of course, dies. Why do they always die?And now a very, very long rant about one minor thing that distractingly bothered me while reading: She's a 16-year-old girl. The man who flies in to bring her father supplies periodically explains that he won't be back for maybe up to a year. There's no mention of bringing a year's worth of tampons or any other feminine hygiene supplies. The only mention of periods is one brief mention that she hasn't had one since arriving there. It's plausible that her periods would stop once she is in survival mode based on stress and lack of enough food, but before that? And even if her periods did stop, it's not something that could have been counted on, so she would need supplies. Or some awkward conversation with her father about expecting her to use washable/reusable supplies. Or moss. I remember in North of Normal, an excellent memoir by Cea Sunrise Person about her childhood off the grid, that the women used moss of some kind and who were thrilled with a Christmas present of a box of tampons, as one would be. The whole lack of stocking up on tampons for the year with no expected resupplying had my mind wandering to the real-world opposite situation when Sally Ride went into space for 1 week and NASA supplied her with 100 tampons and questioned whether that would be enough, an event immortalized in song by Marcia Belsky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTnQ6N-K05s
Anyway, TL/DR, where are the tampons?
That aside, and the annoying father aside, this was an enjoyable survival story with some quite gritty elements in it. Would not recommend it to anyone squeamish about reading about hunting animals for food, though.