The Island by C. L. Taylor

A group of teenagers find themselves alone on a tropical island where their holiday survival experience turns into a real fight for survival. It's as if someone has it in for them, taunting them with their personal - and in some cases, secret - phobias.

The opening is a slow introduction to the group of weeping girls and protective boys, each of whom looks out for the others by asking if they are okay, very regularly. The chapters vary their perspective from the first-person tale of a self-conscious girl, to the view of an insecure boy who is infatuated with another girl from the group of friends. But once the story kicks off, the tension remains until the very end.

A story about friendship, grief, bereavement, facing fears and survival of body and mind, but ultimately it is a book about belonging.  A great Young Adult read.

Also available at  Waterstones.

Published by HQ Young Adult on 21 January 2021.
​Advanced review copy supplied by the publisher.