Tucker Gergen - The first Chapter of Hatchet: How is it this good

 

        I don’t cry, I don’t really show emotion, I don’t like sobby movies because they don’t make me cry. The first chapter of Hatchet was the best piece of creative art I have ever seen, read or heard. Period. Some come close but this made me cry. Not a movie, a book was the first thing to make me tear up in a long time. 

It starts you off getting on a plane. If you read the back, heard it from friends or marketing you know this plane is going to crash but how. It lures you into a false sense of security, wow sitting in the co-pilot seat is pretty cool, like most books would’ve done. But what goes on next is the some of the best writing I have ever seen. Divorce, the secret, what is the secret, I don’t know the reader doesn’t know. What they do know is that some secret was probably being held by a parent then the other found out. 

A great line was “He had cried for a time, but r that was gone now. He didn't cry now. Instead his eyes burned and tears came” This shows masculinity and wanting to fit in. This might’ve gone on for a long time because of, “He had cried,” but we don’t know because of the vagueness. Turn back to the present. Another false sense of security. Do you want to fly the plane?  The Pilot says. Then our first clue. “‘Aches and pains--must be getting old.’ Pilot says” 

You don’t know it by this point but that will spiral out of control getting worse and worse until,  but we aren’t we are still in the present. Then it happens again 

Divorce.

The Secret.

Fights.

Split.

It is written out just like that to draw so much attention to it that your eyes will at one point jump to them before you read it after you read it. And this line “The big split. Brian's father did not understand as Brian did, knew only that Brian's mother wanted to break the marriage apart.” In this book we are following one person throughout the entire book. This shows that a kid as however young as Brian is, he knows more than he should. Also that it came as a surprise to Brian's father. 

Right as we are very deep in Brian's thoughts, wip right out as the plane turns and now the pilot smells, hmmm. Oh well must of ate something.

Then flash back to Mother giving him the hatchet that will be ever so important. Mom says “‘you can use it in the woods with your father’ dad not father”

Then Brian gets on the plane again in the flash back and we are in the present. Then wam. Something happens yes I will not spoil the first chapter and I do not care that it is just the first chapter it is too good. Go read it. I will do a full book review but the start of the book was too good to hold on to.

I know I painted this book as a drama or everything goes bad, and that is exactly what happens, everything goes wrong at the wrong time.