When I Fell From the Sky: The True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival by Juliane Koepcke

I have no idea how I heard about When I Fell From the Sky: The True Story of One Woman's Miraculous Survival by Juliane Koepcke, but here we are. Here's the gist:

Many people wonder how I still manage to get on airplanes, for I am one of the few who have survived a plane crash from a great height. It was a catastrophe that occurred nearly ten thousand feet over the Peruvian rain forest. But that’s not all: After the crash I struggled for eleven days on my own through the jungle. At that time, when I fell from the sky, I was just seventeen years old. (location 93)

Yep, Koepcke survived a plane crash that killed everyone else on board, including her mother. Koepcke had an interesting childhood. Her parents were German scientists, studying at an outpost in the Peruvian jungle. She grew up in the jungle and was sent to Germany after the plane crash. 

I'm not being critical of Koepcke at all when I say this, but this suffered from what I call "the memoir problem." Koepcke's background is interesting, her experience of the crash and trying to get back to civilization was interesting, and her post-crash life and relationships were interesting. But, it turns out, that real life is not interesting enough to me to make it worth reading 200 pages. The interesting bits of the book made up about fifty pages and the rest of it was stuff about her parents' research, her wanting to save the research station, what she's doing with her own career as a biologist, blah, blah, blah. 

This is almost certainly a me problem. I wanted the nitty gritty details of the plane crash (not for the fainthearted - there is a bit about maggots that if you shuddered when you read the word here WILL NOT LIKE IN THE BOOK) and not the nitty gritty details of running a remote research station. But maybe you, dear reader, do want those details. (Also, there's a closeup photo of a bat. A BAT. FYI.) If so, this book is for you. 

3/5 stars 

Lines of note:

Complete strangers approach me on the street, want my autograph or just want to touch me. I find this incredibly trying. (location 2402)

This is interesting and yet, it only got these two sentences. I honestly can't tell if Koepcke didn't remember more details, didn't want to talk about it, or if the translation was an issue here. Regardless, I wanted more than "trying," and I wanted to hear about one or two of these interactions, how she felt, and how she responded. 

The bulk of their work, therefore, consisted in making lists of species. (location 2525)

My husband and I joke that all biologists do is make lists. And categorize things. This book did not make me think we are wrong. (There's a biologist at our university who just got back from a semester-long research trip to Belize funded by his Fulbright to study the coral reef - it's not doing well, friends - and I kid you not, he mostly just made lists of species and what he saw and what he didn't. I mean, he did other things, but that's not what he presented at the symposium. My husband and I were making EYES at each other during this lecture.)

Things I looked up:

In Peru, there are around four thousand different known kinds of potatoes. (location 583) - According to the International Potato Center, this is true. Look, friends, I love that there is an International Potato Center. 

manioc (location 863) - a woody tropical shrub of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae) widely cultivated for its edible starchy tuberous roots. It is also commonly known as cassava, yuca, or mandioca

Then there was the twelve-year-old girl who was the sole survivor of a Yemeni plane that crashed in July 2009 near the Comoros Islands. (location 1194) - Her name is Bahia Bakari.

Someone takes a photo that will soon appear in Life magazine. In it, I’m standing on a porch. Someone has put a bathrobe over my shoulders. (location 1697) - I haven't found this photo. 

These women thought my parents were pishtacos. According to folklore, those are supernatural evil spirits that appear in human form, have blond hair and carry backpacks on their backs. They come to kill people surreptitiously at night and suck out their body fat. (location 3075) - Pishtaco is a folkloric boogeyman figure in the Andes region of South America, particularly in Peru and Bolivia, which extracts the fat of its victims. It is believed to have originated in Spanish conquistadors' practice of using Indigenous Peruvians' corpse fat as treatment for wounds and illnesses. (I wish I could erase this from my mind, but now I'm sharing it with you.)

According to other legends, however, the Tunshi is also a guardian of the forest, for it will do something only to those who harm the forest, chop it down or kill its animals. It can make people deaf or blind and also bring madness or even death. But in reality, it’s a perfectly harmless little cuckoo that can almost never be glimpsed. (location 3164) - national bird of Peru

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

with the large straw hat on his head (location 515)

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Anyone else want a membership to the International Potato Center? Does this make you a little less eager to get on an airplane?