Book Review of
The Wager

Lynn's Review

The Wager by David Grann is a nonfiction history book published in 2023.

The Wager is about a shipwreck, mutiny, and murder in the early 1740s. In 1740 a British ship left England on a secret mission during war with Spain.

After a shipwreck, they landed on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. Stranded and alone this group of weary soldiers begin to turn on each.

This is a story of human behavior and what can happen in desperate situations. This book makes you think about what you would do if you were starving to death with little hope of being rescued. 

This is David Grann’s latest book. Many people discovered David Grann’s writing from his book Killers of the Flower Moon. I think many people will enjoy this book, but if you are expecting it to be like Killers of the Flower Moon, it isn’t. This book is totally different.

I really enjoyed The Wager, but I have already admitted that I enjoy books about ships and shipwrecks. This book is good, but it probably isn’t for everyone who loved Killers of the Flower Moon. 

The Wager is a great shipwreck book, but it is not quite the can’t put it down, narrative nonfiction style, that is in The Killers of the Flower Moon. 

If you like nonfiction and have enjoyed David Grann’s other books you might like this one. However, if you typically read mainly fiction and only read The Killers of the Flower Moon because it reads a lot like fiction, The Wager, might not be for you. 

For me, this was a four-star read. It was good, but not as good as The Killers of the Flower Moon.