I was a little disappointed by this book. The premise was great, and the story started off pretty exciting, but the life-with-the-primitives wore on a little long for me. Probably didn't help that read two books about the Yanomamo tribe in South America while studying anthropology in college, so the location, food, drugs and face painting were all familiar.
I thought the story had pretty significant ups and downs, but it kept me moving forward, and ended up being a very good coming-of-age story in a bizarre setting.