I'd Rather Be Castaway With A Beach Ball

Published:  August 16th, 2012
On The Island
By: Tracy Garvis Graves
Penguin
ISBN-13:  9781405910217

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.

Review

 

     There seems to be something about taking people from modern time periods and dropping them onto a deserted island to fend for themselves that takes the fun right out of it.  I don't know about you guys, but I'm such a fan of Swiss Family Robinson castaway types - the ones who make the most out of the situation by finding the fun and excitement in it.  Or at least have them be like the Blue Lagoon castaways, where everyday is a new discovery about life itself while living in an island paradise, away from the taint of civilization.  What I got was a 30 year old schoolteacher, desperate for a family of her own, plus on the verge of breaking it off with her dead-end boyfriend and her sixteen year old student, who is spending his summer recovering from cancer and catching up on schoolwork - at least until they get stranded on an island in the middle of nowhere when their pilot has a heart attack.  Every day is just a struggle to stay alive, with food, water, fire and shelter being the prime concerns.  But after a few years on the island, Anna and T.J. begin to fall in love with each other and start to imagine a life with each other off the island. 

     Anna was a decent character, but even with the emotional monologues and personal issues, I never felt like I really knew what she was going through.  And her know-it-all attempts to tell T.J. what's best for him really got on my nerves.  He's old enough to have sex with her, but T.J. isn't old enough to decide he's in love with her?  Bitch, please!  Also, the only feeling I did ever get off of her was completely ambivalent and she had no personality to me as a reader: insert placeholder HERE.  Yes, this book was fairly true to life.  But honestly speaking, and this is something you will never hear me say about ANY other genre, I much prefer my castaway/island stories to be unrealistic and fun!  The slow build of romance over time after friendship, and all of the realistic survival issues made boring (at least to me) converged to make me feel like this book was really repetitive and not all that interesting.  I felt like 2/3 of the book was them eating, swimming, or missing a plane/dreaming of life off the island.  The almost PTSD actions of both of them once they were off the island only made the book even more depressing, until a last minute turnaround which made me roll my eyes and smile.  Overall, I recommend it to lovers of chick lit who like the more maudlin aspects of being castaway.  But for those who want old style adventure, or classically epic romance this is not the book for you.  At least if you're anything like me at all.

 

VERDICT:  2.5/5  Stars

 

**No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores, online, or maybe even at your local library.**

I'm Peculiar, Are You Peculiar Too?

Published: May 1st, 2012

The Peculiars
By: Maureen Doyle McQuerry

Amulet Books (Imprint of ABRAMS)

ISBN-13:  9781419701788

This dark and thrilling adventure, with an unforgettable heroine, will captivate fans of steampunk, fantasy, and romance. On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if she, too, is Peculiar. On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House. A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to confront her deepest fears.

Review

  Lena Mattacascar has always been different from everyone else in her town.  She has long hands and feet, each with an extra joint - her Nana and the family doctor call them signs of goblinism.  Lena is curious about her Father, who abandoned their family when she was child.  Will she grow up to be like him, lacking morals and obsessed with money and adventure?  On her eighteenth birthday, Lena receives a letter from her Mother, that her Saul (her Father) left for her.  It contains the deed to a mine in the Scree, a lawless and wild land full of peculiars.  Hoping to find her Father to get some answers about herself and why he left, Lena decides to travel to the Scree.  On the train she meets Jimson Quiggley, who is headed to a town on the border of the Scree to be a librarian to a rich eccentric, Mr. Beasley.  Lena also meets Thomas Saltre, a Marshal on the trail of Peculiars who have escaped from the Scree.  He plays on Lena's insecurities and her acute sense that it's wrong to be abnormal; he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley, while in exchange he'll guide her into the Scree.  But when it turns out that Lena has misconstrued things rather badly, the consequences could be dire for some innocent people that happen to be 'peculiar.'  Can she manage to fix her mistakes in time to save Mr. Beasley, Jimson and other peculiars from a horrible fate?  Or will Lena's selfish and shallow choices ruin them all?  This book is classified as steampunk and fantasy, which normally would cause me to steer clear of it.  I have never been a fan of steampunk.  But this book seems to focus more on the physical, genetic abnormalities of the Peculiars and the extreme societal repercussions.  Some are born with 'goblinism' like Lena, others have wings sprouting from their backs.  All of them are viewed as beasts by regular people, treated only with distrust and intolerance.  This book addresses some serious issues with this particular plot device.  Lena herself was an interesting character.  It pained me that she seemed to hate herself so much, she was willing to betray anyone peculiar because she had been lead to believe they were unnatural and needed to be separate from society.  Not until close to the end did she seem to grasp that they deserved the same rights and treatment as normal people.  Jimson was a wonderful character, funny with a big heart and a serious thirst for knowledge.  He was definitely my favorite character, other than the Scree cat Mrs. Mumbles who was made of AWESOMENESS.  An interesting book with some food for thought and a resolution that was okay, but kind of meh compared to the action of the rest of the story.  

VERDICT:  3.75/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley. No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book was published May 1st, 2012.*