4 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
One day, you wake up on the beach of a deserted island. You can't remember much of your life, much less how you came to be there. You see a boat in the distance and decide to swim for it hoping that there might be a radio to contact land or at least some provisions. As you are swimming, you see a fin coming towards you. It's a shark! You swim faster, but the shark just keeps coming after you. It's almost as if someone put it up to it. When you finally reach the boat, you are rewarded with provisions. After a few more similar challenges with similar rewards, you conclude that you are indeed part of some game where if you win you get to live till the next challenge and if you lose you die. This is the predicament Matthew and Ryan find themselves in.
I thought this book was well thought-out and it was obvious from the beginning that the author was going somewhere. He wasn't just trying to make a word-count; he was making every word count. I liked the suspenseful feel the book had as you always knew that more danger was just around the corner for Matthew and Ryan. I also enjoyed the cliff-hanger ending and the point the author was trying to make with it.
As much as I enjoyed Island Games, I did have a couple of problems with the dialogue. At times it felt a little stilted and samey. A couple of times I had to check to make sure I wasn't reading the same page over again. I felt that these minor annoyances didn't merit taking off a whole star, though. One more thing is that I would've liked to know a little bit more about the characters like how old they were. I can't take off any stars for this as the characters don't remember much about themselves at the moment so they can hardly tell me their age or where they're from.
I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. If I could I would probably take off .25 stars for the dialogue but it was more of a personal annoyance that barely hindered the reading of the book than a major mistake on the part of the author.
Overall, I really liked this book and thought that the author did an amazing job fully thinking the plot through and getting his thoughts from his head onto the paper. He perfectly balanced suspense and fun to make a really good book.
******
Island Games
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like papaya12's review? Post a comment saying so!
