Book Review- Boot Camp

So today I am going to make this blog different from usual in reviewing a book. Out of all the books I've read throughout my life, the one I liked the least was Boot Camp, a 2007 young adult by Todd Strasser that I read back in 9th grade, specifically for my literacy class. Its main purpose is to bring awareness to the issue going on in the US involving troubled teens under the age of 18 years are sent boot camps that take the treatment too far in being more reminiscent of prisons. 

Teens here are abused both physically and psychologically to be broken down and trained so they will be sent back to their parents as more respectful, polite and obedient kids. This is like how a cowboy breaks down a bronco or a dog is taught in obedient school. 

The main character of the story is a 15 year-old boy named Garrett Durrell who tells the story from his point of view in the present tense. Garrett is a very smart and gifted young boy who’s always been wise beyond his years and does get very good grades, but lately hasn’t been behaving the best, much to the disapproval of his parents, both of whom already feel he’s disrespectful, disobedient, ignorant, rebellious, selfish, self-centered and unathletic.

Specific acts consist of Garrett lying to them, stealing their money, staying out all night and not coming home, taking drugs, smoking a little and not going to school every day. Worst of all, however, Garrett has even gone as far as to date his math teacher named Sabrina who’s eight-years older than him. His parents managed to get her fired out of embarrassment for the situation, but Garrett keeps on seeing her, despite them forbidding him from doing so.

For Garrett’s parents, that was the final straw and leads to them hiring two bounty hunters to forcefully grab him from their house and take him to a boot camp located in upstate New York ironically named Lake Harmony. 

During his stay at the camp, Garrett finds his spirit ebbing away as he’s constantly beaten, humiliated, and stripped of his pride. The source for this treatment largely comes from the camp’s staff, particularly a repulsive and atrociously sadistic man named Joe, who’s serving as the “father” figure for Garrett’s designated family group. Joe truly proves to be a tormentor rather than a mentor as he repeatedly attacks Garrett for any mishap, even over the most trivial of mistakes and when the boy’s just simply minding his own business. 

In fact, the other teenage boys in Garrett’s family group prove to be antagonistic towards him, especially a nasty red-haired teen named Adam who has yellow reptilian teeth.

Garrett tries to act like he understands the camp’s standards of behavior so he can be released early, but there’s no way to fake it. He also does try to fight back against the enemies, but resistance is futile and only gets him sent into a week of isolation where he has to lay down facing a concrete floor for about a week. 

Despite all this, Garrett does manage to befriend two other troubled teens in the form of a boy named Pauly (after his parents thought he was homosexual because of not being manly enough) and a girl named Sarah (after she disagreed with her parents’ mormonism) who have been stuck there for years without making any significant progress. 

Eventually Paul proposes a plan for him, Garrett and Sarah to escape from the camp. Garrett at first declines the idea upon thinking about the potential unthinkable consequences that would occur because of it, but eventually agrees after his misery continues. 

One night with the use of chemicals and stolen matches, the trio starts a fire which prompts the staff to call firefighters and with the gates are opened so they can arrive, the three use this to their advantage to get out of the camp. During their escape attempt, Joe pursues them in the woods and manages to tackle Sarah until Garrett intervenes and pins him down, threatening to break his arm while doing so. In this moment Garrett literally wants to kill Joe for all the pain and suffering over the past few months until Pauly and Sarah talk him out of doing so. Alternatively they duct tape Joe up and leave him behind a tree before continuing their escape. 

They originally hitchhike on various trucks until they find the bounty hunters that kidnapped Garrett are searching for them which leads them to instead resort to walking. Along the way Sarah hurts her foot which slows her down and Pauly gets very ill before reaching the border then get on a boat to cross the river. But as so, bounty hunters attempt to pursue them on another boat which gradually starts to sink in the middle.

Feeling pitiful, Garrett has Sarah and Pauly go on without him while he helps the pursuers. But all the thanks Garrett gets from the rescue is being brought back to Lake Harmony and tortured much worse then before. After having to endure even more intense treatment, Garrett goes through a mental breakdown which causes him to admit his mistakes and thus, his abuse stops.

Garrett finds himself as a new person who loves how the camp is set up and believes it’s good for any troubled kid, not even showing any sympathy for the other kids beaten up around him and even willingly reports disobedient acts to the officials. 

Meanwhile word gets out about what really goes on at the camp which causes Garrett’s parents with an investigator to bail him out. When asked by them if his abuse was true, Garrett through a PSTD-like moment were he’s unable to function properly so he can provide a simple answer before finally snapping out of it and confirming that it was true but says he deserved all of it. There the story just ends. No camp getting busted, no abusive authority figures arrested and none of the hostile kids shunned. 

Truly the most disappointing, abrupt, lousy and extremely anticlimactic ending to any book I’ve ever read before. I get the ending was supposed to feel realistic to bring more awareness to the issue, but more could have added to show what else happened to the main character regarding his situation rather than just end it there in the way that is a giant let down to the reader. 

Even though I will admit that the details regarding the characters’ physical appearances, personalities and given analogies are very well-done to allow the reader to visualize what’s going on better, they still didn’t help when it came to their overall characters as they were just too mean, sadistic, obnoxious and infuriatingly hateful. 

Unlike certain stories were the main character or someone close them gets trapped in a horrible place that tortures them but they escape and get to resolve it like The Shawshank Redemption, Toy Story 3, and Deadpool 2, that does not happen at all (at least as far as we know). Instead, the hero gets broken into one of the brutes while all the enemies get away scott-free with no comeuppances for their actions. 

Sure Garrett DID indeed have behavior issues but he definitely did not deserve to get beaten up like he feels that he did. He was still a well-meaning nice kid who lacked malicious intent, cared about other innocent people and still had good plans for his future. But this unfortunately wasn’t enough for his lawyer parents who apparently proved more difficult to please as Garrett got older and expected him to be a perfect son. 

The ending was very unfair to my classmates and I who were all rooting for Garrett despite all the struggles only to not win. In fact I even remember my teacher being so upset about how it ended along with making notes how it was sad that the main character failed. 

But I still give it points for making one realize what really could be going on in these private boot camps that exist in real life run by corrupted people who show no mercy as they push teens to their breaking points that will make parents reconsider if that was their initial plan. 

However some reviews I’ve read have criticized the violence for being too repetitive and over-top along with deeming that the hostile teenagers don’t really act how people their age would in real life. Those I definitely agree with and a major part to why this was a very hurtful read for my fellow classmates and I. 

Hope you enjoyed my review!

The cover for the book and the edition I read in class.