#121 The Island

 The Island by C.L. Taylor 

Thank you so much to Harper Collins UK Audio and Netgalley for the arc copy of this book that comes out on 21st January 2021. This is my second C.L Taylor book as i also received an arc copy a few months ago of Strangers which i enjoyed. 

This book is marketed as Lost meets The Hunger Games, for me it was more like Lost meets Lord of the Flies/And Then They Were None. When six teenagers jet off to a remote island off the coast of Thailand for a week of surviving off the land tragedy strikes when their 60 something year old guide dies and they are stranded on the island for 7 days. The teenagers comprise of three girls and 3 boys, Danny and his girlfriend Honor, Jefferson, Jessie and siblings Milo and Meg. (sorry if ive spelt any of them wrong, i listened to the audio) 

During the first night the teens are discussing phobias around the campfire, over the coming days the group are targeted by inflicting their phobia on them. The group are unsure if its one of them or an outsider doing this to them. All they know is that they need to survive the seven days and when they dont return they presume their parents will raise the alarm and they will be rescued. 

Ok lets start with the things i liked, i really enjoyed the premise i do like remote island stranded survival stories. I thought there was good back stories for a few of the characters particularly Jessie, Danny and Meg, i would have liked to have seen Jefferson, Milo and Honor having a bit more of a background too. I enjoyed the chapter splits and that it didnt follow all 6 of the teens as that would have been confusing, i also really liked how there were multiple narrators this made it so much easier for me to concentrate on who was who, i really struggle with multiple POV sometimes. 

Things i didnt care for as much: it all seems a bit unrealistic to me, whose parents at that age would let teens wild on a remote island with a randon 60 year old man as a guide and not panic when none of the parents heard from them at all as all of their phones died within the first 24 hours. Unexperiened teens would have been given rigorous survival training before attending something like this surely? I thought the ending was a tiny bit predictable towards the end (i wont say much more than that as i want this to be spolier free but the author gives you too many clues in order for you to work it out) for the first half the author did do a good job of leading you to believe that it could be any of them and subtley gives them all a motive which was interesting.

All in all it was fast paced and a quick read, it only took me a few hours of listening on 1.75 speed. I would read more of C.L Taylors work as shes really up and coming in the thriller world.