Review - On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Title: On the Island
Author: Tracey Garvis-Graves
Publisher: (not listed)
Publish Date: Oct 11, 2011

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I kept seeing this book floating around facebook and finally decided that since we were taking a vacation to California, what better book to read there. Sadly, it never made it there. I finished it the night before, reading until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I think I fell asleep with about six pages left.

Such a good read!!

I cannot say enough good things about how this book is written. The story line made me hesitate a bit because I am not a fan of older and younger, not of age. BUT Tracey handled this situation with the up most care and regard for the situation. I really appreciated the way she detailed it.

I love that Anna has a such a wonderful personality. She is sweet, kind and yet, she still makes her student be the student. She is currently in a relationship with a boy who just can't seem to make a decision and so indecision kind of becomes the decision. She takes this job as a tutor to get away and take herself out of the equation and maybe coming back to make the decision, although we get the taste that she may have already decided.

 TJ is a kid who just wants to live. He has been through much in the way of cancer dealing with all the hardships that come with it. He is finally cancer free so he wants to do what all kids do during the summer, hang with his friends. But no, that will not happen. His parent's make him come on a vacation to study with a tutor to be ready to go back to school.

Sadly their trip to the vacation doesn't go so well as their plane goes down in the middle of the ocean and they land on an island all by themselves. The telling of what Anna and TJ go through is horrific. Just image the daily things we deal with - monthly periods, food cravings, sleeping in a bed, being clean - oh wait and food, water and disease!! And then comes in the fact that TJ has a thing for Anna. She's beautiful, smart and funny. I loved the way their relationship develops. Tracey did such a good job with this! (did I say that already)

Best summer book I've read in a long time!!!

AND I WON A SIGNED COPY!! Yes, I bought the ebook and then won a signed paper copy from A Tale of Many Reviews. So stoked!! I better keep an eye on that, though I am already telling a few people they have to borrow my SIGNED COPY!!

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.