Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Hatchet

Top positive review

A great story! And the Audio CD version is captivating!

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2017

My 10 year old son, and I listened to "Hatchet" on Audio CD format, while driving from WA State to eastern B.C., Canada. Read splendidly by Peter Coyote, it is a captivating story of a boy's survival in the northern Canadian woods. My son was mesmerized. He and I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and it helped time pass quickly on our long drive north. I think the entire audio version is just over 3 hours, with 3 CD's. I highly recommend this book for any youngster who's curious about learning survival skills, and imagines what it would be like to have to survive on their own.

85 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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mike zita

Not a good read

Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2019

I bought this as a bedtime read for my kids. We made it through the first few pagers before it was put aside for good. The book opens with a tale of divorce, and a dead pilot filling the cockpit of his plane with the smell of his evacuated bowels. The poor writing style and negative themes prevented me form going further into the book, maybe it gets better? I would not recommend this book to anyone!

10 people found this helpful

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Daniel

I really loved this book as a young boy in elementary school

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2015

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I really loved this book as a young boy in elementary school. That was probably the last time I read through it.

Feeling nostalgic, I decided to go ahead and pick this up to re-read it after all these years. It holds up decently as an adult but you really notice it's flaws.

My main complaint is that it ends so abruptly. I don't remember that, but the end of the books feels really rushed, like the author said, "Whoops, I'm going on too long here," and decided to wrap it up quickly. Not so noticeable as a young kid with a short attention span but pretty jarring when an adult. Still, this book was made for kids so it's excusable.

35 people found this helpful

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You get invested in Brian's fate, but ulitmately unsatisfying read

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020

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So I think we all know what this novel is about by now: young thirteen year old out in a harsh environment in the Canadian wilderness after the plane he is riding on crashes. He is alone. How will our young hero survive?

Had I read Gary Paulson’s Hatchet in my youth I might have appreciated it more than I do now. While it was a rather quick read (one could read this in literally one or two sittings), there were areas that made it a rather mediocre and, ultimately, less-than-satisfying read.

I get that the author wants to add a little dimension to Brian’s character, but the “secret” and the whole thing with Brian and his mom was a tad overdone. It’s a little distracting and seems like it is just kind of thrown in there to add another element to the plot. However, many of Brian’s thoughts back to “that incident” seem to come out of nowhere, and then it reverts back to his survival tale.

Some parts were rather unbelievable as well. Brian taking over the plane with the downed pilot for starters. Brian often recalls his recollection of survival scenarios and his knowledge of television programs and movies often to help him proceed.

However, this is the unforgiving and relentless Canadian wilderness. There are wild animals and obstacles at every point for our main character: mosquitos, wild moose, bears, porcupines, snakes, skunks, tornadoes, gut-berries…Will our young protagonist channel his inner Robinson Crusoe/ Tom Hanks and fight back his urges of weeping and self-pity and waving the proverbial white surrender flag?

I think you know the answer to that, dear reader.

As other reviewers have alluded to, at points the story is told in a rather simplistic way and has a very distracting and rather odd repetitive style of narration.

Case in point: “He had forgotten to think about them and that wasn’t good. He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him.”

???

Complaints aside, there are points where we do want to see how it all pans out for Brian and I suppose there is some sort of character arc where he becomes quite a different character from Point A to Point B from his experience out there having to rough it. So, I suppose we have some investment into Brian’s fate as we move along and this becomes a learning experience. Also, his sidekick and ally, trusty Mr. Hatchet, comes into play quite a bit in his adventures, sort of the Wilson to Tom Hanks’ Chuck Noland.

While there are certain elements of survival here, if you are looking for survival themed tales you could probably find better ones out there.

2 people found this helpful

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ingrid goyette

my 9 year old finds it "cliche"

Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2019

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it's not the best piece of writing I've come across, the plot is cliche according to my 9 year old, but I still give it 3 stars because it has held his interest enough to keep on reading, he does want to know what happens next. I just don't think it should be as popular as it is because kids should have a better example of good writing. oh well, a love for books is a love for books I guess if it gets them to read

One person found this helpful

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EthanPDX

There's a lot to recommend this book

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2015

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There's a lot to recommend this book, but I would say it stumbles for younger readers because it has as a backdrop the boy's parents' divorce, and his witnessing his mother's infidelity as "The Secret" that he often thinks about during his time surviving in the wild. If a child is actually grappling with a divorce, or is old enough to properly parse the situation, it would be a great choice. My son (who is 7) acts lukewarm about the book, but is now constantly playing survival games with friends . . . so it certainly gets kids thinking about self-reliance, nature observation, learning through mistakes . . . many great themes.

3 people found this helpful

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Kevin

Disappointing ending

Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2020

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This was a very readable, engaging book until the end. It almost felt like the author's editor said OK, wrap this up in a page and a half, its going on too long. I on the other hand was engaged and wanted to find out more about his rescue, how his parents coped while he was gone, what rescue efforts had missed him while he was in the wild. It just ended too abruptly. Other than that I thought it was a good read.

One person found this helpful

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BullDog

Mixed reviews

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2009

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After reading HATCHET, I can understand why it received mixed reviews.

I think Paulsen should have started the story with Brian's life in the city, showing how much of a city boy he was with his only understanding of the world around him comming from TV and movies. In that way the reader would have had at least some true sympathy for him. As it was, I thought Brian was a total dim-wit for not knowing the basics of anything. I agree with one of the reviewers -- I was also rooting for the moose.

I think Paulsen did not need to have Brian be privy to his mother's infidelity. Paulsen could have built sorrow over his parent's divorce in other ways.

I did not appreciate Paulsen having Brian cutting himself with his hatchet during a moment of despair. There are more than enough juvenile suicides going around. Paulsen could have told of and shown Brian's despair in many ways other than attempted suicide.

Finally, the novel was more of a diary/documentary than it was a fictional story. But it is next to impossible to have dialog and interactions when there is only one character.

I would have liked Paulsen to continue the story after Brian found the emergency supplies. I think Paulsen ended the story too abruptly.

All in all, HATCHET was okay. I just can't see it as a 5 or receiving all the awards.

18 people found this helpful

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Linda A Seidman

Fast read

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2019

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A,story of survival,personal I got tired of the one person thoughts. I like more dialogue and less descriptions, however for this story to succeed , the author must provide lots of descriptions, just my opinion.

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Crissy Page

Choppy writing, terrible as read-aloud

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2020

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My 11-year-old son kept complaining about the writing in this book. He found multiple typos and kept insisting the writing just wasn’t quality. I decided to read a few chapters to him at bedtime, and surprisingly, my child was right. This word choices in this book are extremely repetitive, and it is a choppy, disjointed read. I hate abandoning books, but we are not finishing this one.

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B. Downey

Wasn't as good as I was expected it to be

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2017

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I was a little disappointed after this book was built up to me by a friend; however, it's an okay read for old elementary students. And generates some good conversation among them.

One person found this helpful

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Elaine Walsh

Didn't realize it's a YA book, but it's still good, just not an adult story

Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2014

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For the YA crowd, I think this would be excellent and the study guide in the back would provoke many good discussions, especially for children who have little outdoor experience. For an adult reader, it was way too simple and relatively graceless, but that's an unfair criticism, as I came to it expecting something that it was not going to deliver. Again, as a YA book, it definitely delivers a thought provoking and discussion-starting story with a compelling narrator.

2 people found this helpful

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