I suffered so much and for so long. Maybe if people read this they will realize that if I can make it, they can make it. Many people suffer only because of what happens in their head; I was also physically being tortured. I had no food. No water. If I can make it so can you. If one depressed person avoids committing suicide then the book is a success. protagonist,alvarenga,resides in. I can see why it’s of use to the story but I found it quite tedious. I knew I had to push through it though to get to the near fatal fishing trip. what else motivated him to spend hour after hour with me, telling all the details of his story? I quote at length his answer. Why wasn’t it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?” Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea

Ezequiel continually burned more calories than he ate, by bailing water and hauling fish into the boat. Another unexpected and appreciated surprise for me was that Franklin did not end the story with the rescue, as most authors do. He stayed with Alvarenga as he attempted to readjust to society, both physically and mentally. This is the “rest of the story” that we are usually not given. I also appreciated Mr. Franklin’s deep sympathy and respect for Mr. Alvarenga, which gave the story an emotional impact that is often missing in nonfiction. I can’t imagine a novel exploring the emotional and physical suffering of its hero any deeper than this fine book. Be strong. Think positive. If you start to think to the contrary, you are headed to failure. Your mind has to be relaxed “as you think about survival. Don’t think about death. If you think you are going to die, you will die. You have to survive and think about the future of your life, that life is beautiful! How can you imagine taking your own life? There are challenges and punishment in life but you have to fight!”Costa Azul is a lost corner of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state and a region where emigrants tend not to stop as they continue on the long trek north to the United States. Few arrivals see much of an economic salvation in the tattered local economy. But the thirty-year-old Alvarenga wasn’t looking at land—his eyes were focused on the Pacific Ocean and had been since he was eleven years old and had run away from school to live at the beach with friends. Costa Azul would serve not as home but as home base. He would launch seaward for multiday ocean journeys to the richest remaining fishing grounds along Mexico’s plundered coastal ecosystems.

438 DAYS | Kirkus Reviews

Surviving the voyage made Alvarenga a celebrity of sorts, and both his life before the voyage, the voyage itself, and his newfound celebrity once he’d washed up on land again are recounted here as factually as is possible in a case like this where so much relies on one person’s account of things. So there you have it – a survival story about some guy who drifted an awfully long way in a boat and had to eat a lot of birds to survive. The famished fisherman crawled naked through a carpet of sodden palm fronds, sharp coconut shells and tasty flowers. He was unable to stand for more than a few seconds. “I was totally destroyed and as skinny as a board,” he said. “The only thing left was my intestines and gut, plus skin and bones. My arms had no meat. My thighs were skinny and ugly.” The implausibility of someone surviving so long at sea on a small craft led a number of commentators to doubt Alvarenga's story, though investigators were able to confirm some of the basic details. The owner of the boat he used, César Castillo, said that "it's incredible to survive that long. It's hard to think how anybody could go more than six or seven months without getting scurvy at least." [8] However, in an interview, Claude Piantadosi of Duke University said that fresh meat from birds and turtles contains vitamin C and that eating a lot of it, as Alvarenga claims to have done, "would provide sufficient vitamin C to prevent scurvy." [20] The Guardian found the Chiapas rescue services official, Jaime Marroquín, who was informed that a fishing boat had gone missing in the area on November 17, 2012. The official report identified the two fishermen as Cirilo Vargas and Ezequiel Córdova, [8] and stated that both were in their 30s. [8] Marroquín also indicated that according to the boat's owner, Vargas was born in El Salvador. [1] The local authorities originally searched for Vargas and Córdova, but called off the search after two days, citing heavy fog and bad weather. [8] In regard to the discrepancy between the names of the fishermen in the 2012 report and those of Alvarenga and Córdoba, CBS News reported that "records in Mexico are often filed with such mistakes". [21] Another explanation was provided by Alvarenga's parents, as reported by National Post, when they confirmed that in Mexico their son was known as "Cirilo". [22] Thank you for choosing 438 Days as a book to be shared with your many readers. 438 Days is both an easy read and a disturbing look at extreme suffering. The lessons lived by Salvador Alvarenga as he drifted for over a year is the kind of tale that reaches a wide audience. School children and grandparents alike can readily understand the challenges of surviving alone at sea, adrift for months.Although Alvarenga was unaware, he carried the optimum body type and precise age for an extreme survival situation. He was exceptionally strong but not too tall or muscled to require massive caloric intake, and at thirty-four years old near the perfect vortex of maximum strength and maximum experience.”