Books --- The Raft

Like the movie, “Gravity,” the book, “The Raft,” by S.A. Bodeen, is also a survival story.  But compared to the movie, I found “The Raft” to be a more satisfying story for several reasons.

One, being a book rather than a movie, we can feel the feelings and hear the thoughts of the main character, fifteen year-old Robie Mitchell. With a movie, we can only see how those thoughts and feelings appear from the outside.  In this case, Bodeen did such a good job of showing Robie’s fear as the plane crashes, I was literally shaking.  Okay, it was slightly chilly, but I still couldn’t tell that my shakes weren’t nervous energy from the story; it was that scary.

Two, the main character, Robie, is always engaged in reacting to the disastrous events occurring around her.  Eventually, she is ground down to the point where there is no hope for survival, yet with Max’s encouragement, she continues to crawl on.  If the writer had not sent in a ship to rescue her, she would have died.  In this story, she does not save herself by her own wit and ingenuity, but is rescued by other people.

Three, in the end, the main character has something to live for. She has a family waiting for her.  And she has a mission --- to tell Max’s family the story of how he saved her life.  And, by leaving it to our imagination just how she does that, and what she might say, the author has created a story which is unforgettable.

Comparing this book to the movie, “Gravity,” is simple:  The movie, while worth seeing for its point of view, is still fantasy.  This book is built on reality, and it shows.