ALIVE by Piers Paul Read

Everybody knows the story - A plane carrying a Uruguayan soccer team crash lands in the Andes.  When they are rescued, ten weeks later, only sixteen of the forty-five are still alive.  A heartbreaking, spiritual and amazing story about the will to survive.   And, uh, it also has . . . you've probably heard about . . . it's really no big deal . . .  but . . . there's a little bit of cannibalism.

Wait, wait, wait.  Don't go surf to another page.  I know you don't normally read about cannibalism.  And you darn well won't let your teen read about cannibalism.  I completely understand.  Cannibalism is gross.

 But hear me out.  You like Twilight right?  At least your daughter does. That's about vampires.  And vampires are practically cannibals.  They drink each others blood.  That's basically what ALIVE is: Twilight on a crashed plane in the Andes.  Instead of vampires, it has soccer players.

It is truly a remarkable book.  An exciting book.  A thrilling book.   The reader grows to love the characters and becomes genuinely fearful at their predicament.   If you read the book please e-mail me what you think at bsummers@yumalibrary.org

What?  You don't like Twilight and my efforts to compare Alive with Twilight don't make you want to read it?  That's fine.  Do you like Harry Potter? Well, quidditch is a lot like soccer.   So imagine if Harry Potter's quidditch team crashed in the Andes and they were forced to eat Draco Malfoy.    ALIVE is pretty much just a Harry Potter sequel.

If you give only one book about cannibalism to your child, it should be ALIVE.

If you have a teenage daughter you have no doubt seen Twilight already.  It was filmed near my home town of Troutdale, Oregon.  The giant waterfall? Multnomah Falls.  A twenty minute drive from my house.  The Vampire Prom? The View Point Inn.  Ten minutes from my house.

Here is an article about it from the Gresham Outlook, my hometown paper.