Book Review - On The Island - Tracey Garvis Graves

Book Review - On The Island - Tracey Garvis Graves

Suitable for YA/Adults

Considering the stranded-on-a-desert-island story is such a classic of fiction, and one that I love the idea of, I've only ever actually read Lord of the Flies. Sure, I've watched Lost and The Mighty Boosh, but I've never read Swallows and Amazons and...there are others, right? Really obvious ones? Man, my mind's gone blank and I don't have enough time to spend looking them. Just rest assured that I know there are others. This was sold to me by a friend as 'teen gets stranded on island with hot older lady', and as I can remember my formative teenage years quite well I must say it it appealed to me immensely.

Thirty-year-old English tutor Anna crash lands on a deserted island with sixteen-year-old pupil T.J. during a flight over the Maldives, and the pair are forced to find a way to survive the isolation and wilderness of the unknown, with minimal hope of rescue. In time they'll grow closer as they come to accept the growing likelihood that they'll never return home, but will they even survive till tomorrow with the dangers that a deserted island offers?

Let me say one thing first; I enjoyed On the Island, and I'd recommend checking it out. It keeps you turning the page, the characters are likable and relate-able, and at no point did I think any of the situation was getting unbelievable (they didn't learn to become shark-killing ninjas with spinning blades overnight or anything like that). It gets particularly strong about a third of the way through when Anna and C.J. start to get closer, and continues to be until the end (I don't want to spoil too many plot details here). I wanted to know what happened to them, whether they would leave the island, and I wasn't disappointed in that at all.

Where I need to be a bit more negative is with the first third, and unfortunately it's difficult to say exactly I didn't enjoy as much. The story is intriguing as the crash first happens, it's just that I didn't find the characters as interesting, and it was the situation rather than Anna and T.J. themselves that kept me reading. It's as if all of a sudden I clicked with them a third in, from which point it was great, but I read the first third thinking 'yeah, this is okay, though I might try something else'. Sometimes I suppose it just takes a while to get into a book.

I'm glad I stuck with it, because it's a great read for the final two-thirds, and I feel bad criticising the first third because of it, but I wouldn't want anyone else to think the same and not stick it out. Once I really got sucked into the story it flew by, and I thought it dealt with Anna and C.J.'s situation really well, and ended exactly how I thought it should.

Just don't read it before flying over the Maldives...

4/5