I Am Still Alive

"I squeeze my eyes closed until the tears have nowhere to go.  I'm not going to give up.  I might die, but it's not going to be because I sat here crying like a useless lump.  I can't let myself think I have nothing.  That's what I thought that first day, and I was wrong."

16-year-old Jess Cooper finds her life in Seattle turned upside down when she is severally injured in a car accident.  The same accident that took her mother's life.  With nowhere else to go Jess heads north to Alaska to live with her a father, a man she hasn't known since she was very young.  Upon arriving in Alaska Jess finds that her father doesn't live there.  He lives in a tiny cabin in the wilderness of Canada that can only be reached by plane.  A place very few people know of, and most of those people are bad.

Jess reluctantly stays with her father.  She doesn't see many other options and she has no way to leave the remote cabin.  She spends her days sulking and arguing with her dad until one day, a few short weeks after she's arrived, she finds herself completely alone.  Her dad has been murdered and the cabin has been burned to the ground.  The only company Jess has is her father's faithful dog, Bo, and together they must learn to survive the rapidly approaching winter in the wilderness.  Jess has two things encouraging her the entire time; the will to live and the need for revenge for her father's murder.

I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall was a wonderful little YA thriller.  I was sucked in immediately and had a hard time putting it down!  I really enjoyed the character of Jess.  She's a very typical teenager when her story begins, but we see her grow so much throughout.  And she's very strong, even from the beginning when she loses her mother.  We see her accept and overcome so many challenges, both physical and mental.  I think that is something our younger generation will benefit from and I've passed this book on to my 12-year-old daughter to read.

I enjoyed Kate Alice Marshall's unique writing style in this novel.  The first half is written as Jess writing in a journal and tells the story of what happened to her before and after her father's death.  The second half of the novel shows a distinct change in Jess.  She's no longer journaling, but simply retelling, and we can see the shift where she is no longer a lost girl but a girl surviving.  The survival aspects of the story are well done, making a fun read for outdoor enthusiasts.