Charles C. Martin

I received this book as a giveaway.

This is a very enjoyable read.

It quickly gets your attention, and keeps it. Fast-paced action, suspenseful events, structured very nicely.

Characters are very engaging and sympathetic -- we are made to care about them, what happens to them, and the choices they make. There's interest there not only in the characters themselves, and what happens to them, but also there's a very good dynamic and conflict between them that gives almost any interaction between the three an edge.

The suspenseful plot is very well done, if a tad too facile. At times, serendipitous events -- a boat coming by just in the nick of time to save the protagonist, for example, or another sympathetic old man happening upon our heroes in a cave just when they need saving -- stretch credulity. But it's a fun ride.

The style -- short and sweet and the to the point (as my 4th grade English teacher used to say) -- fits nicely with the characters, plot and the themes, which are the very universal ones of the bildungsroman (a boy finding his way in the world): the meaning of friendship, the meaning of living and life itself, and how to forge one's way in the world while trying to forge one's character.

On the flip side, there are no paragraph demarcations.

There's also a very interesting style element of chopping up and separating small pieces of text, separating them by 2 lines when they are not really all that separable, plot-wise. The effect is interesting, but goes well with the characters -- you feel the moment-to-moment effect of their days, the not-really-sure where this is all going aspect of the plot. They're as unsure about the course of their lives as the text seems to be.… (altro)