Novel Review - The Raft

The Raft is a novel by Peter Orner. The whole story is concerning the dialogue between the me character, who is a 13 year old boy, and his grandfather, an ex-captain on a destroyer ship during World War II. Basicly, the story is conveyed by the me-character, who is retelling an event from the past, so the story is told in present tense! I liked this, because it made it much easier to understand what actually happened. In the event, the grandfather is telling a horrible secret to the young me-character. The grandfather's personality is displayed as strict and mean, a real military tough-nut, but conscientious. His mean personality is well displayed when he says: "Just because I'm smiling, don't assume I couldn't kill you right now. Know that about a man.", very ironic and heartless, telling the boy to him to take this message very seriously. 

From the start of the story he tells us that he is a former military captain from World War II. Once he mentions World War II it is obvious to me that he is going to tell us of some bloody incident. This is in my opinion what sets the climax of the story, because throughout the story I am just waiting for the grandfather to finally reveal the horrible truth, which he eventually does.

The themes of this story are in my opinion conscientiousness and regret. These feelings are probably what leads him into telling the boy this awful story. He knows that the decision he made back in the day was a big mistake, and he needs to let somebody know so that he can get it off his heart and lighten the burden.