#RollBackWeek Review: On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Recommended Read!

“Tracey Garvis Graves writes with such ease you can’t help but get lost in this world. ”
~ Under the Covers

I’ve had ON THE ISLAND on my radar for a while because of the student/teacher premise, but for one reason or another was never compelled to pick it up. It wasn’t until this week I was browsing book trailers on YouTube and came across a fan made video for it. I was immediately interested in the story! Then I listened to an interview with the author and I just had to know how she could make this work. Because I had a major hang up about it. The age gap. Anna is 13/14 years older than TJ. But I went in with an open mind and I’m so glad that I did.

This book starts off right off the bat with Anna heading on a working summer vacation to the Maldives where she’s supposed to tutor 16 year old TJ, who is in remission from cancer and had to miss a lot at school. His parents and sisters had already traveled ahead, and TJ and Anna are left to travel alone in a charter plane. She leaves behind her boyfriend of 8 years who is afraid to commit and move forward with their life together. This trip was meant to be a time to clear her mind and figure out what to do with her life.

But of course, as you can expect they never make it. The plane goes down and they are forced to survive lost on a deserted island with nothing but each other to make it through. As time passes so their hopes for rescue, and years go by. As much as I’m a fan of survival shows like Lost, or even Naked and Afraid, I enjoyed seeing this element incorporated into a story. Even though after watching these shows I thought some of the things that happened might’ve been a bit far-fetched.

The connection between Anna and TJ develops slowly and I thought that was perfect. First they just depend on each other for survival, then they depend on each other emotionally to try and get through their circumstances, then they connect deeper as friends. Until there’s no other way but to develop feelings for each other.

Couple of things in case you are like me and worried to pick this up. There’s no sexual relationship between Anna and TJ until he’s of legal age, 18. I think had it been different I may not have been so ok with it. But add in their circumstances and it was also only understandable that’s how the relationship between two attractive people stuck together on an island progressed.

Tracey Garvis Graves writes with such ease you can’t help but get lost in this world. The way she conveys emotion was perfect for this story! This was not as heavy on angst as I imagined it would be, it was a sweet, summer read and it certainly has left me wanting to read more from this author.