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bardic_llama 's review for:

The River by Gary Paulsen
4.0
adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The first book of this series was one of those memorable books from my childhood, having read it for school and then being obsessed with a hatchet, thinking I could do the same. And as I've found other childhood reads weren't actually standalones, like The Giver for example, I figured to check out if Hatchet was a series. Lo' and behold, it is a series so I checked out the audiobook for this one. Must say I greatly enjoyed the atmospheric background music added alongside the narration. It helped further establish the tone in parts and kept me from zoning out during other bits. 

The only downside was that I found the premise for why they were going back into the wilderness a little weak but was ultimately able to overlook it. Like I'm pretty sure that a military employee wouldn't need a teenager to help him develop their survivalist courses. That and it did the same thing that Hatchet where there's not really any resolution, it's just 'oh, Brian's saved.' So a lot of the first third was getting more of that resolution that should've been in the first book.