Review: On the Island (On the Island #1) By Tracey Garvis-Graves

On the Island  (On the Island #1)

By Tracey Garvis-Graves

My rating: 5 of 5 stars




I was thirty years old when the seaplane T.J. Callahan and I were traveling on crash-landed in the Indian Ocean. T.J. was sixteen, and three months into remission from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The pilot’s name was Mick, but he died before we hit the water.

On the Island was an EPIC book!

I don't know where to start from.I L-O-V-E-D this book (I can't stop thinking about it!).

T.J. is just recovering from cancer and the only thing he wants is to spend time with his family and friends.That's until his parents decide that he has alreday lost enough time because of the cancer and it's time to go back on track! That's why they hire Anna to tutor T.J. while on their vacation in the Maldives.

T.J.'s family leave first while T.J. stays behind so that he can go to his friend's party.Anna and T.J. take off together for the islands the very next day!Everything goes as planned until they arrive at Malé International Airport in the Maldives.There their plans are being changed, and they end up taking another flight...

Their pilot, Mick, was a 50-year-old man who during their flight suffered a heart attack.After their seaplane hit the water, things became very hard for Anna and T.J.

Being trapped on a deserted island unknown to anyone isn't easy.But being trapped on a deserted island when everyone presume you're dead and you know help is not coming, is just hard!

Will they know we crashed? Were they tracking us on radar?
Maybe not, because no one came.

Anna and T.J. do anything in order to survive.But as days turn to months and months into years, life becomes more and more harder...

“I give up, T.J. You once said, ‘It’s easier if you don’t think they’re coming back’ and you were right. This one’s not coming back either. A plane will have to land in the lagoon for me to believe we might actually get off this island. Until then, it’s just you and me. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”

“I give up, too,” he whispered.

This book was prodigious! The author is an incredible story-teller who did an amazing job describing to us all the couple went through! How they supported each other, how easily they helped each other and finally how they came closer!

For people who are wondering if the age gap makes their relationship inappropriate or improper or even illegal, I PROMISE it does not! They don't get physically involved until he is almost 19-years-old. But that's even the matter because if you read the book will you see how beautiful it was watching them fall for each other.Their relationship was developing throughout the years passed, the author never tried to hasten their relationship.

The book is told in dual POVs alternately, Anna and TJ. respectively. It's one of the things I loved, because we get to see how they both feel about the things happening to them.It allows to glimpse into their minds which is very important given the situation!

This book is bound to captivate you from its first page till the last. It's one of they books that you are just unable to put down...

And finally, yes this book has a HEA!!!!

“I don't fit in your world."
"Neither do I, So let's make our own. We've done it before.”

For those who were wondering or were unsure of reading it because of T.J.'s cancer.It never came back...

Highly recommended!!!I'm going to re-read it...

Synopsis

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.