On the Island: A Novel

by Tracey Garvis Graves

In this runaway New York Times bestseller, a harrowing near-death experience brings together an English teacher and her student as they struggle to survive on a desert island.

Sixteen-year-old T.J. Callahan has no desire to go anywhere. With his cancer in remission, all he wants is to get back to his normal life. But his parents insist that he spend the summer catching up on the school he missed while he was sick.

Anna Emerson is a thirty-year-old English teacher who has been worn down by the cold Chicago winters and a relationship that’s going nowhere. To break up the monotony of everyday life, she jumps at the chance to spend the summer on a tropical island tutoring T.J.

Anna and T.J. board a private plane headed to the Callahans’ summer home, but as they fly over the Maldives’ twelve hundred islands, the unthinkable happens: their plane crashes in shark-infested waters. They make it to shore, but soon discover they’re stranded on an uninhabited island.

At first, their only thought is survival. But as the days turn to weeks, and then months, and as birthdays pass, the castaways must brave violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the worst threat of all—the possibility that T.J.’s cancer could return. With only each other for love and support, these two lost souls must come to terms with their situation and find compaionship in one another in the moments they need it most.

• ISBN10: 014219672X
• ISBN13: 9780142196724
• Publish Date: 10 July 2012 (first published 28 May 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142196724

Reviews

[scarr]

3.75 stars

To truly enjoy this book, you need to suspend your understanding of survival capabilities and what not. The writing is good - which made it easier to ignore the many conveniences that popped up just in time to help this couple survive the island. I will say, for me, the book hooked me with the first sentence and I read it in one sitting.

[nitzan_schwarz]

June 15, 2018 - I had a really difficult day yesterday and needed something to hold me together so I dropped everything and re-read this one. Just what the doctor ordered.

[Nany]

I love the story and how the relationship was built. But, the end was a bit too long.

[Chelsea]

What I Loved

knew nothing about this book going into it except that my friend loved it and thought I should read it. That was good enough for me! Plus when the sun starts warming up outside I feel the need to read contemporaries and since YA contemporaries have never made it very high on mu list of things to read, I decided to kick it up and go with some NA this year. I was not disappointed! That slight age jump made the book better in my opinion. I’ll be sticking with NA in the future!

I loved the whole concept of this book. I found the author did the whole stranded on an island thing pretty realistic. I mean it was as realistic as it probably could have been. I don’t think many people would have survived though but it was cool to read. I found that they didn’t have it easy on the island which is good because who would? I’m glad there was some challenges because I’m a fan of action and I found that the possibility of them dying at some points during the story made up for the lack of action in this kind of book.

I’ve also been craving some romance lately and this book definitely helped with that. I thought the romance was very sweet and even though there was an age difference I think it worked. I also loved the ending of this story. It was never easy for this couple but the ending still left me satisfied.

What I Didn't Love

The only thing I would have liked to see was a little more action or adventure. Just a little something more to really grab my attention. It would have gotten 5 stars with just a teeny bit more! That’s all personal opinion though. I’m used to reading fantasy so it’s hard for me to like a contemporary. A 4 stars on a contemporary is basically a 5 stars on a fantasy book.

Who I'd Recommend To

I’d recommend this to anyone looking for something romantic and sweet. If you liked The Martian but would have liked to see more romance in that story (not that it would have worked) then this is a great book for you to try! There’s even some humour to the story during some parts which was really appreciated!

[Angie]

Let's try this again, since GR decided to delete this review...

I am in love with On the Island! It was the perfect summer romance and unlike other contemporaries that I’ve read. Anna is hired to tutor sixteen year old T.J. over the summer after he missed most of his sophomore year due to cancer. His parents plan to fly them out to join them at their beach house, but when their pilot has a heart attack and the plane goes down, Anna and T.J. are stranded on one of about a thousand uninhabited islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The two do what they can to survive and hope to draw the attention of a passing plane, but once two go by without turning around, they have to learn to make the island their home.

On the Island blew me away! I’m terrified of flying so those first few chapters had me extremely nervous. But once T.J. and Anna are on the island, I didn’t want to put it down. The author describes all aspects of their new situation, including the unpleasant and the dangerous. It’s amazing to me what people can accomplish in life or death situations. I do think some of their life was made too easy. Some useful stuff is conveniently washed up on shore in perfect condition, and they find some stuff when they start exploring the island. However, I figured that if that’s the island they washed up on, it would make sense that some items from the crash would find their way there, too. And the mystery supplies that they find were an interesting twist. I’ll definitely need to pick up the companion novella, Uncharted, to find out more.

The romance was amazing! Don’t worry, nothing happens between a 30 year old woman and a 16 year old boy (although I don’t think I would have been bothered given the situation). Anna does set boundaries, such as making sure they bathe separately. But after two years alone together, something is bound to happen. Of course, T.J. did have a bit of a crush on his hot teacher when they arrived, but eventually that turned into real feelings. And soon enough, Anna realizes that T.J. is no longer a boy, but a man, and their connection is strong. I didn’t want them to leave the island!

About halfway through On the Island, Anna and T.J. do get rescued after nearly four years on the island. I was worried that it was going to lose some of the magic once they were back in the “real world” but I continued to love it just as much! They’re reunited with their families who thought they had been dead this entire time, but they also face the media. Reporters follow them everywhere and their relationship is obvious, and the reporters try to turn it into something ugly. Doubt wiggles its way between them, but I do think it was the best thing for them at the time, despite wanting them to be together so bad!

On the Island does have my least favorite type of romance ending, but I didn’t mind it. In fact, I really liked it and it made me tear up! Anna and T.J. deserve everything they got and more after the ordeal they went through. Although, I did miss the island and Chicken the chicken.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[leelu92]

More like 4.5 stars. I devoured this book. I made myself put it down last night/early this morning...it just sucked me in. I loved the evolution of TJ and Anna's relationship. I was relieved that I got to experience their relationship after they got off of the island. On the island was like living in a vacuum and out in the real world there was a whole new set of pressures. Plus you have a man who left as a kid... missed school and college and girls. Anna recognized all of this and pushed TJ to experience some of that.
I did not want this book to end and I cannot wait for the novella this summer.

[Joséphine]

I picked it up at Popular bookstore, started flipping a few pages, and decided to start from the beginning. I contemplated buying it but wanted to thumb through first to see if anything would get me hooked. 45 minutes later or so though I had reached the end. Somehow I really wanted to like it. It wasn't the usual type of book I would read. Yet I ended up skipping chunks here and there, and I couldn't contain my eye rolling. Sure, being stranded on an island messes with people's minds but the resolution at the end just made me go blah. Also, for a student/ teacher relationship to turn into love like that, there has to be something that really compels the people involved. All in all, I felt the book read like a huge dose of fluff.

[Kelly]

I absolutely adored this book. It's passionate, consuming and simply beautiful. I couldn't put it down.

[kimbacaffeinate]

I can definitely understand why this made the New York Times bestseller’s list. Tracey Garvis-Graves delivers a powerful, taboo romance that will have you rethinking age old opinions. I was completely captivated from page one and consumed this in a single evening.

Anna Emerson is at a crossroads in her life. She wants children and marriage, but the man she has been in a relationship with for eight years doesn’t want to commit. At thirty-one her biological clock is screaming and she decides to accept a summer job tutoring T.J. a sixteen year old boy who’s recently recovered from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She will be spending the summer on a tropical island with them far from her life at home. She plans to use the time to reflect and make decisions regarding the relationship. T.J and Anna travel from Chicago to the islands. On the final leg of their trip, they fly in a private charter over the Maldives islands. It is here that the unthinkable happens. The plan crashes and they find themselves on a desert island. The tale that unfolds is fascinating, beautiful, sad, scary, and wonderfully touching.

The characters were fully developed and I had a strong sense of who they were. I connected with Anna and really liked her. T.J. was sweet and brave. He seemed to accept the way things were, and rather than dwelling on how bad their situation was he worked to improve them. The tale is told in alternating POV’s and this really helped me connect with them. The romance that develops is sweet. What? Wait aren’t they sixteen and thirty..eww! That was my first thought too, but this is not insta-love and it took years to develop and it felt so genuine, believable and right. For those who are still freaking out, I will tell you nothing happen until T.J. was nineteen. They are normal, functional people who found strength, friendship and compassion from each other. It was beautiful and I loved their story.

The world building and Graves writing style were smashing. I became completely swept up in the first few pages, and didn’t surface until the last page. Questions raced through my mind as I read; Would they be saved? Would their love survive if they left the island? It’s the kind of tale that is so surreal and makes you think about their circumstances. Could I survive on a desert island, let alone a day without soap? Could I even make a fire? The tale itself spans several years and I was intrigued by island life and how they survived. Some scenes I found awkward, maybe because they were awkward for the characters. Overall, they added to the believability. It’s wonderful when an author makes you fully invested in two characters and their romance.
I want to thank Plume/Penguin for sending me this finished copy in exchange for my unbiased review.
Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

As a fan of Lost, I love the concept for this novel--two people from different generations crash land on an island. The down side was this novel read quickly, too quickly in my opinion. There was no depth to the characters. It seemed there was barely a backwards glance to Anna's and TJ's lives that were going on once they crash landed on the Island once they discovered there was little chance for their rescue. And once they were rescued, beyond the constant worry about the acceptance of their relationship, there were no issues with their reintegration into society.

Maybe I was expecting too much from the novel, but after hearing the author speak locally, I was really excited to read her book because she said that Lost inspired her to write this novel. With the depth of that show and the character development that occured, I was hoping to see something similar in
[b:On the Island|12991245|On the Island|Tracey Garvis-Graves|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327165425s/12991245.jpg|18151286]. Instead the novel, in terms, of plot depth was more of a Lifetime movie.