Holes: no plot holes
Title: Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Pages: 233
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Who will like it? People into O. Henry endings.
It’s hilarious how little I remember of this book. My sister practically burst into laughter listening to how I recollected it and begged me to pick it up for a re-read. The story goes that younger me in seventh grade recommended it to my little sister in fifth grade, and my sister adored me and read it five times and I felt so happy she loved the book.
My recollection before reading it this time: Stanley Yelnats with his palindrome name was sent to a desert for stealing a baseball cap. It was a horrible camp for little boys and the warden punished them by making them dig. So Stanley dug holes during the day and filled them up at night, to be re-dug the next day. The warden threatened to shoot anyone who left the premises, and Stanley was too scared to run. There was a big bully at camp, and Zero became Stanley’s sidekick.
More or less what actually happened: Stanley’s great great grandfather stole a pig and bestowed a curse on the entire Yelnats family, which Stanley still suffers to this day. He was convicted of stealing Clyde Livingston’s shoes (very stinky ones because the basketball player had a foot fungus in which Stanley’s father was inventing the cure to, with no luck), which were going to be auctioned off to an orphanage when Stanley was innocent of the pilfer. Just dumb luck. He arrived at camp, was scavenger’s meat at the bottom of the food chain, and he dug holes until his hands bled, and he realized the warden was making them search for something. There was no water within a 100-mile radius of Camp Greenlake, so the warden wouldn’t even waste a bullet on them. Stanley stood up for Zero, the fastest hole digger at Camp.
At the end of the day, this book is about fate and destiny and luck, with a satisfying, jig-saw-pieces-all-fit-together ending. There are happy endings, tragic endings, hopeful endings, and open endings. The ending to the story of five generations of Yenalts was a sweet one.
