Review: On the Island

On the Island

by Tracey Garvis-Graves

My Rating: Golden Star

Amazon | Barnes & Noble

When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn't bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family - and a stack of overdue assignments - instead of his friends. Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island. Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

My Review
If you haven't read this book yet then where have you been?  Seriously you need to stop reading this right now go to the buy links and get this book! If the hundreds of raving reviews haven't convinced you then buy it because it's going to be a movie and you need to be in the know!  Have I convinced you yet?  Maybe I should say a little bit more of why this is a must read...would that help with your indecisiveness of whether to get the book or not?

Tracey Garvis-Graves gave me the book for review and let me tell you I put the book on my kindle and read until I was finished! (which I think turned out to be like 5 a.m.) This is one of those WOW books.  The kind that grip you from the beginning and don't let go until you turn the last page!  It's the book that you would pry your eyes open with toothpicks at night just so you can read the next chapter!

I was a bit of a skeptic at first...I couldn't figure out why all these people were loving this romance between a sixteen year old boy and thirty year old woman.  I was thinking what you're probably thinking...until I read the book.  On the island, age disappears.  It's all about survival.  When the romance appears in the book (which it doesn't for awhile), it feels completely natural.  All of the skepticism I had vanished once I was immersed in the story.  I guess I'm saying if that is what is holding you back from the story, don't let it.

The world building was phenomenal.  For most of the book I was on that island with TJ and Anna fighting for survival.  I was there right along with them trying to figure out how the heck to survive off the land.  The emotions they were going through felt real to me.  They had many hardships throughout the book and I loved going through that journey with them as I read through the book.  That is one of my favorite things about reading is when an author can bring you in like that!  I also love the character development and growth.  Both TJ and Anna had to learn some things and get through stages of life and they were definitely challenged with getting through those things while stranded on an island.  Just to top it all off the romance was awesome!  I loved TJ and Anna's relationship.  They definitely had to get close fast (not necessarily in a romantic way at the time) in order to survive.

I loved every part of this book and if I sat here long enough, I would accidentally tell you the whole story!  It is SO good, and I recommend this book to EVERYONE and if for some reason you didn't listen to me at the beginning of the review go buy it now!

If you've read this On the Island, what did you think? or If you haven't read it, did you go buy it? :D