On the Island

By: Tracey Garvis Graves

Narrated by: Heidi Baker

Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

When 30-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 17 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.

©2011 Tracey Garvis-Graves (P)2012 Tracey Garvis-Graves

Deeply satisfying read.

This is the only book in 15 years of listening that I listened to a second time. With so many wonderful books to choose from, I am always on to new experiences. This book is so uplifting and meaningful, and yet light and fun at the same time. I found myself yearning to go back to the island and experience the story of these characters all over again.

Awesome book!

Would you consider the audio edition of On the Island to be better than the print version?

Love both the print and audible version! The Audible version has exceeded my expectations! Highly recommend it.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ana and TJ! Great story, very interesting, engaging and enjoyable.

Which scene was your favorite?

Not saying, in case you haven't read the book. It's all good.

Any additional comments?

Would love an Audible version of Uncharted as well.

Great Book !

But why not catch the chickens and breed them ? LoL Overall great story. Would of loved to hear more about the island though.

Excellent Story, Poor Narration, Worth Reading

The narrator almost ruined it for me and I really had to focus on which POV we were following. The narrator didn't even attempt to change their voice to distinguish characters. The story was amazing though and I loved it. I am planning to read it now since I didn't enjoy listening.

Better narration please

I read this book 4 or 5 years ago and really enjoyed it so recently decided I wanted a repeat of it and downloaded the audiobook. Unfortunately, this book is one much better read on your own than listened to, the narrator just read way too fast. She has a pleasant voice and it would have been fine if she had paused for punctuation or changed her voice for different characters at all, but she didn't. It sounded like she was continuously reading run-on sentences or something. I haven't gotten very far into the audiobook, but I'm not sure I'll be able to keep going with it, I may have to return this one and just read it myself.

Loved it again!

I read this book years ago on my kindle and was so happy to see it in audio book form BUT, this narrator was horrible! I have to slow her talking speed down because it was too fast and she didn't differentiate between who was talking. Other than that this book is great! It is outside my normal genre of books (paranormal romance) but it was fabulous, you really fell in love with the Anna and TJ and sympathized with all of their hardships on the island. Would definitely listen to this again.

Cute story

The book wasn’t bad but I was not a fan of the narrator. I could hardly tell the difference between TJ and Anna as her voice barely changed. The story was interesting though.

such a wonderful unique love story

I loved absolutely everything about this book. I've listened to it multiple times even with my mother and husband. Made me laugh and cry.

Odd but okay

This is a very NOT realistic story - its a fairy-tale with a plot sort of like the movie the Blue Lagune. Except of course that the characters in this book are adult (or for the male main character - teenager). It is not very well written and not really that good, just not really bad either. Narator is fine.

Keeping it Real

At the very beginning I was a little squicked by the ages of the characters because you absolutely knew where the relationship was headed but then I suddenly remembered some very good friends who have the same age difference where she is 13 years older than he is and they have a wonderful marriage and grandchildren even so who cares how old other people are. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter a fig.

I was a little surprised at how long it took for the characters to develop the relationship but I guess the author did that to keep the relationship above board. Personally I think that in the real world it would have happened a lot sooner for comfort as well as passion.

But I really liked the story. Their struggle for survival, how much they both had to pull together and draw on inner strength neither knew they were capable of made an exciting story for me. And then the difficulties they had adjusting to going back to civilization after so long rang really true for me.

So yeah, I recommend this book.