A review by oashackelford
Five Survive by Holly Jackson

3.0

Five teens going on a fun spring break excursion, what could go wrong? Well, a lot apparently. Red Kenny has a secret, one that no one else is supposed to know, but someone clearly does know it because she and her friends have been targeted by someone to get that secret. Their RV has been attacked and stranded and unless someone comes by to help them soon the attacker is threatening to take them out one by one. That's about the time that Red finds out she isn't even the only teen on this trip that has something to hide, but is anyone else's secret worth killing over?


I really struggled with this book. I loved her other series, and so I thought that this would be fun as well but it took me a really long time to get into this one. I know that she was trying to do like a locked door mystery where no one can leave and it takes a while for the characters to realize why they are there and how futile escape is, but it just seemed really really unplausible. When Agatha Christie invites all of her characters to an island during the stormy season, she knows that there is no way for her characters to leave, this just feels really unlikely. In addition to that, I don't think I really liked any of the characters. I know that you should at least feel some sympathy for Red, but after a while it doesn't have any impact and her character feels very one note.

And now for a spoiler.....

Spoiler

I did like the part where the sniper took out Oliver, because he was a psychopath and he deserved to die, but I don't like that Arthur killed Catharine Lavoy. I don't know why but I guess I wanted Red to be able to take her down in a legal way, or at least confront her for the damage that she caused her life. I think that it ended up being a little anti-climactic for me, because I wanted Red to resolve some of the issues that she had in her life.