Jayeless.net

Holes by Louis Sachar

book cover of Holes

This is another of those books that a lot of people studied at school, but not me. It was recently really cheap in the Kindle Store so I grabbed it. It turned out to be a really nice little book, although I’m not sure there was much about it to study at school (so probably a good thing I didn’t read it there, or I would’ve ended up hating it).

The novel has a couple of different threads – one following the protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, at the hellish Green Lake Camp; another following his family history; and a third that really ties in with the second one that follows the decline of the long-gone town that the camp stands on the site of. The three threads all tie together nicely at the end, and the character of Zero really tugged on my heart strings.

This is yet another of those books that really deserves three and a half. It’s a lovely children’s book, but it wasn’t as meaningful to me as an adult as it might’ve been if I’d read it when I was younger (without studying it at school). I still really recommend it.

★★★½

a cartoony avatar of Jessica Smith is a socialist and a feminist who loves animals, books, gaming, and cooking; she’s also interested in linguistics, history, technology and society.