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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
I really enjoyed this story! Well written, especially for a debut author, and very well paced. The story never lost the intrigue brought by the question of survival right up until the last page.
I figured this was going to be another rehashing of the whole Hunger Games/Divergent thing, and it pretty much was, except that the premise was never explained and the writing was really pretty solid. I enjoyed it.
(From www.pingwings.ca)
Received from the publisher, for free, in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Summary from Goodreads:
I was so intrigued by this book. I loved the idea of a scary, mysterious, dangerous island (I loved the show Lost!), trying to survive while figuring out how they got there – and how to get out of this place.
Unfortunately, the romance really took centre stage, and that was the aspect of the story that I found the least interesting.The book started off great, with Charley somehow being zapped from a Target parking lot to the island. She finds herself naked and alone, and has to figure out how to survive. It turns out there are many dangers on the island: animals, poisonous plants, the sun during the day and the cold at night, staving off thirst and hunger…and once she meets up with Thad and the others from the City (where the islanders have gathered to try and live together and survive), she learns that if you don’t get yourself off the island in a year, you die. It was wonderfully creepy and tense.
I was hooked right away. I wanted to know more about the island, about how people had survived and what happened to those who’d come before. Unfortunately, I had to deal with the romance angle first. There was nothing unlikable about either Charley or Thad, and I could totally understand the idea of living with no regrets when your days are, literally, numbered. There was nothing about the romance that bothered me or upset me. It just wasn’t the element of the story that interested me the most.
The story was alternatively narrated by both Charley and Thad, and dual narration can be difficult to read in a book like this when I found there wasn’t much distinction between their narrative voices. It was a good device for getting to learn more about the characters, but their voices felt identical to me.
I have to point out something that I’ve seen other Canadian bloggers mention: Thad’s use of the expression ‘eh’. It was too much. It was overused and not always used properly! Every time he said ‘eh’ it irked me.
This book left me with so many questions. I had thought it was part of a series, but given the way the story ended, it seemed like a standalone. And I couldn’t see anything on Goodreads about a sequel or companion novel. Spoiler alert! What happened phsically to the people who didn’t get off the island and died? Like Thad wondered, do they just drop dead, or fade away, or experience pain? Also, was Rives’ theory about the solar flares correct? What was the deal with that girl Ramia? She seemed to have predicted much of what happened and so I thought I’d learn more about her, but I didn’t. And most pressing (to me): what was the purpose of the island? Why were people taken there and why did they die after 365 days if they couldn’t find a way off before then? End of spoilers.
I know that books don’t need to provide answers to every question they raise, but given the story, I totally expected to learn more about the island. That said, I enjoyed the majority of the book, and would recommend it to readers looking for a story that combines suspense and mystery with a bit of a Lost-type vibe.
Received from the publisher, for free, in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Summary from Goodreads:
On the mysterious island of Nil, the rules are set. You have exactly 365 days to escape—or you die.
Seventeen-year-old Charley doesn’t know the rules. She doesn’t even know where she is. The last thing she remembers is blacking out, and when she wakes up, she’s naked in an empty rock field.
Lost and alone, Charley finds no sign of other people until she meets Thad, the gorgeous leader of a clan of teenage refugees. Soon Charley learns that leaving the island is harder than she thought . . . and so is falling in love. With Thad’s time running out, Charley realizes that she has to find a way to beat the clock, and quickly.
I was so intrigued by this book. I loved the idea of a scary, mysterious, dangerous island (I loved the show Lost!), trying to survive while figuring out how they got there – and how to get out of this place.
Unfortunately, the romance really took centre stage, and that was the aspect of the story that I found the least interesting.The book started off great, with Charley somehow being zapped from a Target parking lot to the island. She finds herself naked and alone, and has to figure out how to survive. It turns out there are many dangers on the island: animals, poisonous plants, the sun during the day and the cold at night, staving off thirst and hunger…and once she meets up with Thad and the others from the City (where the islanders have gathered to try and live together and survive), she learns that if you don’t get yourself off the island in a year, you die. It was wonderfully creepy and tense.
I was hooked right away. I wanted to know more about the island, about how people had survived and what happened to those who’d come before. Unfortunately, I had to deal with the romance angle first. There was nothing unlikable about either Charley or Thad, and I could totally understand the idea of living with no regrets when your days are, literally, numbered. There was nothing about the romance that bothered me or upset me. It just wasn’t the element of the story that interested me the most.
The story was alternatively narrated by both Charley and Thad, and dual narration can be difficult to read in a book like this when I found there wasn’t much distinction between their narrative voices. It was a good device for getting to learn more about the characters, but their voices felt identical to me.
I have to point out something that I’ve seen other Canadian bloggers mention: Thad’s use of the expression ‘eh’. It was too much. It was overused and not always used properly! Every time he said ‘eh’ it irked me.
This book left me with so many questions. I had thought it was part of a series, but given the way the story ended, it seemed like a standalone. And I couldn’t see anything on Goodreads about a sequel or companion novel. Spoiler alert! What happened phsically to the people who didn’t get off the island and died? Like Thad wondered, do they just drop dead, or fade away, or experience pain? Also, was Rives’ theory about the solar flares correct? What was the deal with that girl Ramia? She seemed to have predicted much of what happened and so I thought I’d learn more about her, but I didn’t. And most pressing (to me): what was the purpose of the island? Why were people taken there and why did they die after 365 days if they couldn’t find a way off before then? End of spoilers.
I know that books don’t need to provide answers to every question they raise, but given the story, I totally expected to learn more about the island. That said, I enjoyed the majority of the book, and would recommend it to readers looking for a story that combines suspense and mystery with a bit of a Lost-type vibe.
I love love loved this book. It took me just a little while to get into it, but once I did, I thought it was great. It's been described as "Survivor" meets "Lost" and besides being stranded on an island with weird things happening, I don't think it is similar to either. It's unique and it was a good fun read. I was definitely disappointed with the ending. It was too quick. It should have kept it's back and forth point of view. I suppose it was done to create suspense, but it didn't work. It would have been better if it was longer, kept up with the back and forth, and did perhaps some kind of epilogue to let us learn the fates of some others. 4.5 stars.
Holy. S***. This book seriously hit me right in the feels. I CRIED at the end of this book it was so good. I knew I was going to like it because Rives was my favorite character in the first book. So when I heard he was going to be the main character in this book I was super pumped. My heart was pumping so hard as I read the last few chapters. The last two lines of the book were so perfect I couldn't even handle it. Everything about this book just made me so happy and as I said before, beat me with the feels. I shipped Rives and Skye together even before they met and I was not disappointed. They were so freaking cute together!! It was a bit of insta-love when they first saw each other, which I was okay with. I was happy that they kind of fought and argued a little bit so it didn't seem too much of a fast relationship. But seriously everything about this book was action packed and the romance was just perfect. I really didn't get why they made Keira like Rives so much, she totally just disappeared without really addressing what happened to her, not that I care, because I didn't like her very much. This book made me even like the island Nil itself that's how emotionally attached I was to it. I get the story of how it got there, with the war and stuff making it a bad place to go to, but I still don't really understand the point of it. I LOVED her uncle's journal, I was laughing so hard at some of the things he was saying. The only thing I didn't like about this book was Dex dying. I'm still hoping that he was actually alive and somehow survived but that is highly unlikely. Everything else about it was perfection. I even loved the Tiger at the beginning and end of the book, that's how good this book was. Like I said before, I was crying because I am so attached to it. I just need another book of Rives and Skye and their life together because I fell in love with their love. (Totally wishing I was Skye right now). I loved this book so much, and it is honestly up there with some of my favorites.