Has the thought of running away from home ever crossed your mind? Yeah. It would be cool to have no parents or anyone to boss you around. It would be fun to live on your own. Maybe, you have had this thought before. Well, have you ever thought about how you would feed yourself? How you would care for yourself? How you would keep yourself entertained? How you would pay for things?
Sometimes, kids forget about things like that, and think that they will be fine on their own. But really, we need our parents, and I think in the book The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart, the main character Mark really teaches us to appreciate having our parents always with us. Mark has a great story to tell, and I encourage you to listen close or read the book.
The main character of this novel is named Mark. Mark had cancer, and just when he thought he was finally getting over it, it came right back. Although this story might sound like one of those books about surviving cancer and treatments and all that sad stuff, it’s not at all. I don’t think Gemeinhardt intended it to be one of those books.
This book is more of an adventure story. Mark’s grandpa, who meant a lot to him, had passed away and said that he always wanted to climb Mt. Rainier. If you didn’t know, Mt. Rainier is a very tall, cold and hard-to-climb mountain in Washington state. Mark thought that he needed to climb this mountain–just for his grandpa. Unlike his grandpa though, Mark was not a professional climber, and did not have experience. Despite that, he had a goal, determination, and 100 dollars. So he left home on a journey to Mt. Rainier.
As much as I’d love to tell you everything that happened during his trip, I can’t. But I can tell you how Mark changes. At first Mark is very confident about running away. He is sure that he will make it to Mt. Rainier and thinks he will do it easily. Well, that’s not really what happened…
After getting robbed, beaten up, not being able to feel his fingers, and sleeping on the side of the street, Mark starts to get more aware of how unrealistically challenging this whole trip was. Once things get harder for Mark, he starts to miss his family which makes him sad. That makes him less confident towards running away from them. At the end of the book, Mark has one last change, a very good one, but I will let you read to find out about that one.
In my opinion there were several themes in this book. One theme was to think things through more carefully. Mark didn’t really think about the dangers and consequences he would have to face if he ran away. He also didn’t think about how much he needed his parents, (especially since he was very sick) and how much they needed him. If Mark had thought it through a bit more, he probably would have realized that it was not the smartest idea.
Another theme in this story was to be thankful for what you have. At the end of the book, Mark finally realizes how lucky he is, regardless of his illness. He has great friends, great parents, and much more. He thinks about the way he just ran away from all of that, and that hurts him. He has so much to live for, so why throw it away?
This book taught me to be thankful, and think things through, which are very important lessons. In this book, I felt like I was in the story watching all of this happen, since the author had great descriptive language. At some points in the story we get annoyed or frustrated with the characters, but after everything they go through and everything we have seen them do, and every way that they have become better people, we root for them.
To wrap it up, The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart is an inspiring, sad, suspenseful and meaningful adventure. It is a great read all around.