On the Island

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

Unexpectedly good

I read this while on a Caribbean vacation; it was a great place to read it. Mixture of adventure, romance and human psyche. Sort of like a "shipwrecked" story but much more. Especially about how young people grow up under unusual circustances and world. I recommend this book.

Not as good as I'd hoped

The story began well but dragged on the island and became a little too unrealistic for me to let my disbelief suspend. The virus and diseases they contracted absolutely would have killed them. And based on how long they were on the island, they would have DEFINITELY began a relationship before they did. However, everything post-island was significantly better and I was happy with the ending.

The "romantic" side of this romantic novel was minimal. There were moments when the writer seemed to want to go for detailed and dirty descriptions, and then stopped short. It seemed unbalanced in that way.

The narration was amateurish. She did well with Anna's chapters, but mostly did nothing to change the tambour of her voice when speaking as TJ, so it became confusing at times. The producer would have done well to have hired a male actor to read TJ's chapters.

Good book, probably a better read than listen..

Where I liked the narrator's voice, this book is told my the male and female perspective. Her voice didn't change at all for TJs chapters and I had a hard time telling them apart. I did like the story but I think I would have liked it much more if I had read it.

Favorite

One of my all time favs! I absolutely love the story, so unique! The narration takes a bit of getting used too. It's not awful but the narrator speaks super fast.

Just ok

What did you like best about On the Island? What did you like least?

It was a nice, cheesy love story.

How could the performance have been better?

It was extremely unrealistic.

Any additional comments?

I found the narrator's voice to be slightly irritating