Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Just the Two of Us



On the Island
Tracey Garvis Graves
Fiction

I was really excited about this book when I read the description of it, but by the time I got to the last page, I was feeling really let down.

On the Island is the story of thirty year-old Anna and sixteen year-old T.J. T.J.’s in remission for cancer and Anna has been hired as his tutor during the summer. They’re supposed to fly to a small island in the Maldives that his family has rented but on the last bit of their trek, while in a small boat plane, the pilot has a heart attack and the plane crashes. Anna and T.J. manage to swim to a small island where they wait and hope to be rescued. They end up waiting a loooong time (three years, to be exact), and during that time, T.J. becomes a man. When the attraction between them becomes too much to bear, Anna and T.J. give in to temptation. But what will happen when they’re rescued and go back to real life?

Sounds like a juicy read, right? Well, it was. But not as juicy as I wanted it to be, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why I was so disappointed with it. I do know I didn’t like the first person POV switch. Anna, then T.J., Anna, then T.J. I think it would’ve worked better in third person. And the build-up to the romance between them just didn’t do it for me. I mean, there wasn’t anything really wrong with it, I just…I hate not being able to articulate why I didn’t like something, but I’m going to have to with this review.

On the Island is a breezy summer read, but there’s not much substance so I wouldn’t recommend it.

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