The Raft

For the month November I chose to read The Raft by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. Robie, the main character is an experienced traveler. She has taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll many times. When she has to travel to Midway in a hurry she hops on a small unstable cargo plane in hopes to meet up with her Aunt as soon as possible. After a few hours in the air a large storm hits. In a matter of minutes Robie is stranded in the Pacific ocean with nothing but a limited bag of survival essentials and the co-pilot Max. This is where the real terror begins, floating on an orange raft in shark infested waters with no sign of help. Will Robie and Max survive? Read The Raft to find out.

I chose to read this book because I love adventure. I find reading more enjoyable when i’m on the edge of my seat. I love not knowing what could happen next. This book is totally unpredictable and that’s why I have fallen in love with it. I was able to imagine all the life threatening moments in my head, almost as if I was there. Now this book isn’t a life changing story or an amazing event but, I was able to capture the character’s bravery and courage. I even learned a little more about myself through reading this. Even though this is a fiction story I realized how easy I have it, Robie’s whole life changed after this event. She endured loneliness, dehydration, and much more. I can relate to her because she's just an average 15 year old facing not so average circumstances. This book kept me hooked until the end, I became attached to the character Robie and wanted her to survive.  I would strongly recommend The Raft to all ages, especially teenagers. It’s a thrilling, exciting book that left me on the edge of my seat from cover to cover.

This book represents American culture because we are constantly on the go.  An estimated total of 632,00,000  people in the U.S.A. fly on an airplane every year. Americans constantly travel from one place to the next. We have this amazing opportunity to see parts of the world that people in other countries can’t see, because it is too costly. We have such an easy access to a plane ticket that most of American probably take for granted. Robie was flying over seas when her plane was caught in a storm and unfortunately crashed. America has the amazing technology to create such a wonderful invention to take passenger from one place to another, especially over bodies of water.  Most Americans rely heavily on airplane service for business, vacations, transporting goods, and much more.