I was drawn to The Island as it looked like a good summer novel, and overall I found it was easy to read, written well, and kept me interested enough to want to know how it ended. It’s like a YA version of Survivor and Lord of the Flies which made for an interesting world that’s a little bit different from the average contemporary YA. However, aside from the descriptive settings I found this isn’t really developed well. It’s character driven - which I found to be at the detriment of the plot and pace as it spends too much time setting up backstories rather than telling the actual story.
I also found the plot ‘twists’ rather obvious, and I worked them out quite early on - meaning nothing came as a surprise or shocked me during the course of the story. If there had been some kind of mystery or set up that I wasn’t expecting I think this would have propelled my enjoyment of this a bit more. I felt I was constantly anticipating a twist that I knew was coming rather than having the carpet swept out from under me - which is what I wanted.
The biggest let down for me was the far fetched epilogue that didn’t fit with the rest of the novel. It completely changed the outlook and tone of the whole novel, and ruined whatever redeeming features I might have felt towards it. I found it essentially unnecessary and unrealistic in terms of character development.
I also found the plot ‘twists’ rather obvious, and I worked them out quite early on - meaning nothing came as a surprise or shocked me during the course of the story. If there had been some kind of mystery or set up that I wasn’t expecting I think this would have propelled my enjoyment of this a bit more. I felt I was constantly anticipating a twist that I knew was coming rather than having the carpet swept out from under me - which is what I wanted.
The biggest let down for me was the far fetched epilogue that didn’t fit with the rest of the novel. It completely changed the outlook and tone of the whole novel, and ruined whatever redeeming features I might have felt towards it. I found it essentially unnecessary and unrealistic in terms of character development.