On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Release Date: July 10, 2012 (reprint edition)

Publisher: Plume

Age Group: Adult

Pages: 336

Summary: 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.

My Thoughts:  My sister recommended this book to me. I’m always weary reading adult books. I just tend to like Young Adult more. But this one really blew me away.

We are introduced to Anna who is in her late twenties. She is also a teacher and dating a guy who just won’t commit. They’ve been together 8 years yet they aren’t married and have no kids yet. She wants those things.

We also meet 16 year old T.J. T.J. is a survivor of cancer and his parents want Anna to tutor him and help him get caught up with his classmates. His parents flew over to Maldive and T.J. stays behind a few days. The plan is for him to fly over with Anna. She is going with them for the summer to tutor him. They get on a plane, and the plane never makes it to their destination.  They go down somewhere in the ocean and lucky for them, they are close enough to an island to actually make it to the island. This is crazy. They have to survive on their own, and just hope they can make it through the next few days until they get rescued.

I wasn't sure how long this was going to last, how long they would stay before they got rescued. As the book progressed, even though Anna is quite a bit older than T.J. I wanted her to end up with him. They understood each other, and the chemistry was there, especially once we really got to know them.

This one was awesome. I loved watching them survive. I loved they way they talked to one another, and I loved those “uncomfortable” scenes. I loved watching T.J. grow as a person and I just adored him. I felt myself laughing, smiling, and sniffling.

I won’t say much else about this one. I loved it even though it wasn't YA! I hope everyone gives this book a chance just to see what you think.

Overall: I loved the setting, the characters, the plot, everything that happened. I loved both Anna and T.J. and I loved it! I read it in one sitting and late into the night.

Cover: It’s alright. I liked how she’s just walking across the beach.

What I’d Give It: