REVIEW: On The Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

Format: Kindle Book
Publisher: Tracey Garvis Graves
Release Date: September 2011
My Copy: Self-Purchase
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

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.

"I was thirty years old when the seaplane T.J Callahan and I were traveling on crash-landed in the Indian Ocean."

I just have to say that I have been having the best of luck finding little gems like On the Island on Amazon. I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down once I started reading. I was curious to find out if the 5-star rating on Amazon would love up to it and it did! On the Island was such a wonderful story about two extraordinary people who find love while living and surviving through an incredible journey. I honestly cannot think of one thing to dislike about this book. To me, this novel was perfection and it's totally going to be on my favorites shelf.

"I often caught T.J staring at me, but he'd never been so blatant about it. He was getting bolder, testing the waters. If he had been trying to hide his feelings before, he wasn't as concerned with that now."

At first I was a bit leery of the couple with Anna being thirty and T.J. sixteen at the beginning of their journey. I normally don't have a problem with the older woman and younger man storyline but I do get a little nervous when the young man is still in his teens or not of legal age. But as you get into the story the thirteen year age difference is not weird nor is it a big deal. At the beginning their relationship is nothing more than a young woman taking on motherly type duties to ensure that she and the young teen she's with survive. Anna and T.J. form a strong bond where they must learn to trust and rely on each other to guarantee their survival on the island. They worked perfectly together to find food and water, make a fire and build a shelter. Their general concern for each other's health and well being is very sweet.

"We were two consenting adults, but no matter how I spun it in my head I knew if we ever got off the island, and people found out what we'd done, there could be repercussions for my actions."

As the years go by you witness the evolution of their feelings for one another and nothing happens between the two until T.J. is nineteen years old. Both characters are very likable and you can see why they would eventually start forming feelings outside of their initial relationship. Anna is very mature and caring. She has a very good sense of what's right or wrong. She's a pillar of strength for T.J. especially with everything he's gone through in his young age. At sixteen, T.J. was more mature than most "normal" teenage boys. After surviving Hodgkin's lymphoma his outlook on life is very different. You don't really sense him being a typical immature teen and watching him grow through the years on the island you witness him turning in to a good and mature man. He's adaptable, resourceful and takes on responsibilities of wanting to care and provide for the people he cares about. Tracey Garvis-Graves really does a great job in demonstrating T.J. evolution into manhood and that's what I loved about her writing.

"I don't think about the future anymore, and I haven't since that plane didn't come back. All I know is that you make me happy, and I want to be with you."

This story is a combination of Lost, Castaway and The Blue Lagoon. You're probably think how much can happen on an island? Well there was a lot. Aside from the love story forming there's a lot to learn about survival. Anna and T.J. endure so many things and I was amazed how long they were able to survive being stuck on that island. Garvis-Graves does a fantastic job making you feel like you're actually on that island with Anna and T.J. I felt like I was there with Anna and T.J. gathering fruits and coconuts, fishing for food and weathering through the scorching heat and torrential rain. In different circumstances, their location would seem like paradise but with the lack of daily necessities that island was pure hell. The Maldives had always been one of my ultimate dream vacation destination spots but after reading this book I'm not sure if I'd ever want to fly down to that part of the world. LOL!

“I don't fit in your world.""Neither do I," he said, his expression tender yet resolute. "So let's make our own. We've done it before.”

Now I don't want to spoil the whole book for you but I will say there is a happy ending. I mean I would not give this a five cauldron rating if I had to read about Anna and T.J's hardships, love story and they just end up as skeletons on that island. That would have just been too cruel and as I reader you WANT them to get off that freaking island and just LIVE a happy life. The obstacles the two face after getting off was a little predictable but real. Being isolated on an island for so long and then thrown back into the real world, Anna and T.J. had to relearn what it's like again to be back in civilization and discover truly how genuine their feelings are for each other. 

Anna and T.J's journey is long but totally worth reading about. On the Island is just one of those romance books that leave you happy and very satisfied at the end. This will definitely be one romance book that I will recommend to all my book friends who love a good romance story. There are not enough words to describe how much I loved this book. I'm so glad that I took that leap of faith by picking it up. I swear to you that you will be left as satisfied as I was. This is just a MUST READ!