A review by laelkins
Damselfly by Chandra Prasad

1.0

I was annoyed that it was basically a remake of a classic, “Lord of the Flies,” down to the encounter with a wild pig and the brutal death of one of their own. No rescue here though. Which was fine - I didn’t mind the ambiguous ending. I have seen it presented as a bunch of teenage girls but that isn’t totally true, although they do drive the story and backstory. It also seemed like Prasad needed to do a bit more research. About half way through the main character notes the long toe nails of Anne Marie. Really? They haven’t been there all that long - toe nails grow very slowly and since their diet is mostly conch meat and bananas I doubt that is a recipe for accelerated growth. Other questionable aspects… 3rd degree burns? Compound fracture? poison on the conch? (she carried the syringe in her sock? on a tropical island? after diving to get the conch? )

I was also annoyed at how the back story of Sam was injected into the beginning. I kept thinking is there anything this book doesn’t touch on? In terms of the racism card, I did not get a good sense that all the people that were on the Gold team were Gold (Chester? Betty?) Maybe just pick a few issues to tackle. It is too short and too undeveloped to drop in mental illness, racism, classism, sex, bullying…

I suggest skipping it.