Basically, this is Brian’s Return part 2. Where he actually finishes the trip he set off on–and somehow by far the most tragic of the five books. It’s a major tonal shift and there isn’t really any time to recover from it before the book is over.

I get it, nature is rough sometimes. People die. But these books always had the sense of ’no matter how bad it gets, you know (because it’s a book), nothing truly terrible will happen to Brian’. If that sounds great to you, consider skipping this book.

Other than that, we have the first hint of Brian as teenage boy with teenage boy thoughts–but there just isn’t time to get into it.

And we have more hunting–again, little enough time to get into it.

Honestly, you can stop after book 1 or 3, in my opinion. So it goes.

If there ever happened to be a sixth book, I’d be interested to see the story finished, but apparently (on looking it up), Gary Paulsen passed away in 2021. Such is life. I do wonder about his other works though.

Onward!