Camp Green Lake is a place where people would rather die than live. In spite of its name, there is no lake at this camp. Instead, there is only desert, and people are forced to dig holes. In the book Holes by Louis Sachar, one of the main characters at the camp is Stanley, who was sent there unjustly. Although Stanley was in a hopeless situation, he continued to hope he would survive. The point of this story is how hope helped him survive.

Stanley met lots of friends at the camp who have nicknames, such as Zero, X-Ray, Armpit, Twitch, Squid, Barfbag, and Zigzag. These nicknames relate to something about their personalities. For example, Hector didn’t like to talk at all so the people at the camp called him Zero. At the camp, people liked to call Stanley “Caveman.”

Life in the camp wasn’t easy for Stanley and the others, since lots of people died there because of working in the hot weather.  Therefore, Stanley decided to leave with his friend Zero to find a place where they wouldn’t have to dig holes. After they left, Stanley and Zero had no more water or food left which made them want to go back to the camp. However, Zero would rather die than go back there. Stanley decided to stay with him and hoped that he would find a place to get water and food. Stanley had hope from his grandpa who told him that there is a big hill that has water somewhere in the desert. Stanley never gave up because he believed in his grandfather’s story.  In the end, Stanley finds out the mystery of Camp Green Lake, and how it’s connected to his family’s curse, which began when Stanley’s great-great-grandfather stole a pig.

Holes is an adventure fiction book, in which Stanley Yelnats is always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he is wrongly convicted of stealing a famous baseball player’s cleats. I liked the book because it relates to people who are poor, unlucky in life, and unjustly sent to jail. Even though Stanley wasn’t a typical hero, he made me feel sorry for him and people who were forced to work in jails. The book is effective because I was able to feel how digging holes in Camp Green Lake was cruel and boring. I think the book enhanced my understanding of life because I saw that all people have feelings, even if they don’t talk, such as Hector (Zero), or are poor, such as Stanley. In addition, I learned how people have different problems in their lives, not just at Camp Green Lake.

I would recommend people read this book because it grabs people’s attention by including humorous events and teaching a valuable lesson about hope. Hope to find a place with resources to survive helped Stanley to work hard. This inspired Stanley to never give up until he found the place that his grandfather described.  Hope helped Stanley to survive. The valuable lesson is to never give up hope because hope is a vision of the future that can inspire a person to achieve his goals.  Another reason why I would recommend this book is because the English level is not too difficult, which makes it enjoyable to read. Furthermore, this book is short in length which makes it easy to finish quickly. Also, I like this book because it has a happy ending, and I like happy endings.