*SPOILERS BELOW*
When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.
Lux was definitely an interesting perspective. She just comes across as quite lost and without a tether really holding her anywhere since her mother died. Then she met Nico and attached herself to him and his dream and is now disappointed with how things have worked out for her. She has the potential to be a very strong, independent woman but just acquiesces to Nico’s every whim and allows him to be very dismissive of her and her feelings, which then builds up until she completely unloads on him when she is at her breaking point. I don’t really like how she is so blase towards Amma and Nico and I feel like she let them off way too easily, I wanted more of a rage fuelled drawn out fight or argument.
I think what would of made me love this book more is if we had another perspective in the now. Lux got to be a bit tedious at times and even though she goes through this emotional awakening during the plot and stands up for herself and calls out the insanity that Chloe and Brittany created. She knew that something was off with how everyone was reacting to Harvey being missing and then the radio situation but just let things slide a little too much.
The dual timelines I really enjoyed. It gave a lot of these characters depth and added much needed context to the story and how all of they all ended up at this ‘off the beaten track’ island. In hindsight it’s kind of glaringly obvious who everyone was and how they are connected but as I was reading I had no idea. I ended up really despising Nico in the end and I was glad that he died but I wanted to see him actually get killed. To not get to witness it and just have Lux coming across his body like she did with Harvey and Amma was underwhelming.
I liked that we got to read about the journey to the island from Hawaii and there was some action scenes sailing through the storm. The actual setting of the island though was great. The forced proximity and isolation made the tension continuously build throughout the course of the storyline. The addition of Harvey was kind of an obvious red herring to me, I would of been more inclined to believe he was going to have more of an impact had they had just a few more interactions with him as a group. But otherwise the atmosphere was suspenseful, the twists I could not see coming at all and I was overall entertained!
⭐️4/5 stars This was a wild one!
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