Goodreads synopsis: Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten- pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnats. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day, every day, digging holes: five feet wide and five feet deep. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.
My rating: 5 stars.
Content warnings: PG. The main character is sent to camp for stealing shoes. Other characters talk about the various crimes that landed them at camp. A (adult) character gets scratched with snake venom and is in severe pain for several days. A child gets hit with a shovel and one is poked with a pitchfork (both draw blood). A man and a donkey are shot and killed. Two characters let themselves get bitten by venomous animals.
Thoughts: I don't think this one ever gets old. It was my second time reading the book and I've also seen the movie multiple times, but I still adore the story and how cleverly it was all put together.
It did take a while to grab me the first time around. I'm not sure why. But at most by the time I got to the flashbacks about Green Lake 100 years before, I was hooked. Second time around it didn't even take that long.
The humor throughout is great, but it's also a really sweet story too. Seeing the unusual ways the characters grow and care for each other in rough circumstances. Not even the main two, but everyone.
And the ending is just so clever. All the foreshadowing that builds up to that is just fantastic. It's definitely something worth taking notes on.
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