Rating: 1/5
Sam Gribley wants to have a go at running away, like many boys of his age. His father, laughing, says “Yes,” and expects him to be back the next day, if not that night. But Sam finds a comfortable-looking tree in the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains, which he hollows out and lives in. After a few weeks (and his mother and father have not come to see him) he is living a merry life. A year later, and he is still there, living on fish and berries and eating onion and garlic soup in turtle shells. And his parents have still not come to find him and check that he isn’t dead.
Finally, TWO WHOLE YEARS later, when Sam is about seventeen years old, his father decides to come and check he’s all right. TWO YEARS LATER. And his mother couldn’t be bothered and stayed at home. After a couple of days, his dad goes back home.
The press are after Sam and he tries desperately to conceal his identity. But after two and a half years of voluntary confinement, having not seen a human for months on end, Sam realises that maybe he WANTS to be found after all.
As for my opinion, well, here is a quote:
‘We ate Mother’s fried chicken. Chicken is good, it tastes like chicken.’
I mean, duh!
And here is one more:
‘The sky was as thick as Indiana bean soup.’
Overall, I thought that it was really awful. It was comprised of description upon description upon description of Sam’s dinner. Or if not that, then pages upon pages upon pages about the weather. I really, genuinely hated it.