Book Review – The Island

Title: The Island

Author: Natasha Preston

Number of Pages: 303

Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Horror

My Rating: 💋💋💋💋

Book Summary:

They said Goodbye to their friends and family for the weekend. They weren’t counting on Forever.

Jagged Island. A private amusement park for the very rich -or the very influential. Liam, James, Will, Ava, Harper, and Paisley, social media influencers with millions of followers, have been invited for an exclusive weekend before the park opens. They’ll create posts and videos for their channels and report every second of their VIP treatment.

When the teens arrive, they’re stunned: the resort is even better than they imagined. Their hotel rooms are unreal, the park’s themed rides are incredible, and the island is hauntingly beautiful. Their jam-packed schedule seems to cover every moment of their visit. But soon they realize that something’s missing: getting off the island alive.

My thoughts:

The island does sound hauntingly beautiful as per the books description, and it only becomes more daunting and eerie with the events that begin to take place.

Trapped on an isolated island in the middle of a storm with absolutely no internet or phone service only to discover that the influencers are the target…

It was intriguing to say the least.

Paisley, the True Crime pod-caster/influencer is the main character in this tale, who loves the feel and look of the island as soon as she steps onto it, and determined to utilize the spooky factor for incredible content for her platforms/audience. She soon comes to realize just how real her career will become. Paisley is a tenacious, intelligent, brave, independent and far too trusting. And extremely determined to using her sleuthing skills to solve this mystery. She is an extremely likeable heroine.

Each influencer has their niche; Harper the book blogger, Ava and Will both beauty influencers, Liam the gamer, James the movie/television reviewer and than Paisley. All have interesting and very different personalities and all glued to their phones to create content. Malcolm Wyatt is the billionaire owner of this fun little island and resort, who is closely accompanied by his assistant Camilla. Kenna is their chef for the weekend, along with handsome Reeve and Gibson – crew members.

The influencers are thrilled with their accommodations, mildly creeped out by the chosen aesthetic, but ultimately they begin their fun filled weekend immediately. The gruesome events suddenly begin once they notice one of them is missing; worrying, they start their missing person’s search only to discover something more sinister..

The pace of the book was good, I felt the twists and turns were somewhat predictable but still a fun read. Sometimes you need a quick read like that, but it also helps that I’m an arm chair detective and called it by a few chapters in.

The things I didn’t enjoy was the ending…. What the hell was that crap?! The last few chapters felt rushed and unrealistic. Like the story just needed to end and it ended in a stupid and abrupt way. It didn’t feel real; the emotions felt in such a traumatic instance, it all just seemed….meh at the end. The killer’s reasoning was…a little out there. The fact he chose to target the influencers didn’t tie in at all and it fell a little flat for me.

Ultimately, a readable young adult thriller, but sadly only worth four baci rating from me. Not a novel I would die to tell people about.

My next novel that I’ve already started is called One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle, another discovery from Bookoutlet.ca. We shall see what this novel entails! Review to follow as always.

Ciao!