When I first saw the title on the side of book, I was puzzled, because it said "Of The Fittest". Turns out, the rest of the title was on the side of the cover. It pushed the picture over, removing part of Frank's head, not such a bad thing, as the cover was awfull anyways.
Sadly, the cover was not the only thing wrong with the book...
Plot summery (aka, back cover edited to tell the truth because I don't want to read the book again yet) :
Targets Of Terror! (Note that the person who wrote the back cover must been using sarcasim, as the only terror is the fact the book was published)
Frank and Joe have come to the ruggedly beautiful mountains of Utah to test their wilderness skills. But on their very first day out, after a frayed rope nearly sends Joe plummetting to the bottom of a rocky ravine by accident, they discover that the challenge will be far more perilous than they imagined What peril?. This will be a test of survival, for the reader!
The Hardys have out of nowhere stumbled upon a deadly scheme of greed and sabotage. But to uncover the secret behind it which a four year old could figure out quicker then the Hardy's did Four year old: mommy, it's the escaped convict!, they'll have to follow the trail of infamous outlaws -- Butch Cassidy and his Hole in the Wall gang, and get almost bored to death. The gang may be long gone, but a new breed of desperado is on the loose...and they're gunning for Frank and Joe for about 10 sentances!
Review
Besides the things already mentioned in the mockery of the back cover, there are other problems:
-A lot of the book is spent in the hospital, where the Hardy's have to babysit a kid who the criminal won't stop trying to kill, the so called "Test of survival" doesn't happen for a while.
-The "Test of survival" is the Hardy's chasing after ANOTHER KID, while their suspects appear out of nowhere and join them.
-The sabotage is so lame, it makes the reader want puke instead of reading on.
-Lastly, the "gunfight" is two people who have no idea how to shoot trying to kill each other.
This is the worst Hardy Boys book in history!
Rating
-1
AWFULL!
Every single copy of Survival of The Fittest that I've seen has had the spine/cover offset by any number of degrees. I'm sort of wondering if a copy of the book, with the cover/spine in the correct position, was released, or if everyone at the printers was to hung over or tired to really give a care in the world as to how the cover turned out.
And as you can see on my list of in the Top Ten Casefiles topic, I've got the book tied at #121 with Cave Trap as being the worst books of the Casefiles line.
But all that I remember of Survival of The Fittest is that the Hardy Boys go to a desert in Utah to bake to death from boredom.
I enjoyed reading this page, but I don't think I'd enjoy reading the book!
Wow- granted, it's been a while since I've read this book, but I don't remember it being quite as bad as all that. lol- but to each their own.
QuoteI enjoyed reading this page, but I don't think I'd enjoy reading the book!
Well, you should definitely give it a try before writing it off. For me personally, though there are no Hardy Boys books that I really totally despise or anything (i.e. I generally love them all!), there are some books with some aspects I don't like much- to me, this isn't nearly as bad as some others.....