Bait: A Novel

by J Kent Messum

No one is coming to your aid. We have ensured this.
 
Six strangers wake up on a remote island in the Florida Keys with no memory of their arrival. They soon discover their common bond: all of them are heroin addicts. As the first excruciating pangs of withdrawal make themselves felt, the six notice a yacht anchored across open water. On it lurk four shadowy figures, protected by the hungry sharks that patrol the waves. So begins a dangerous game. The six must undertake the impossible—swim to the next island where a cache of heroin awaits, or die trying. When alliances form, betrayal is inevitable. As the fight to survive intensifies, the stakes reach terrifying heights—and their captors’ motives finally begin to emerge.

• ISBN10: 0142180254
• ISBN13: 9780142180259
• Publish Date: 27 August 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Plume
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142180259

Reviews

[Leah]

I’m almost sure that when I got Bait, that it was a Young Adult novel, so you can imagine my IMMENSE SURPRISE when I started reading and it was about a bunch of junkies. Junkies who had seemingly been kidnapped, dumped in the Florida Keys and made to work for their heroin and by work, I mean swim to another island and risk being eaten by sharks. Savage, init?

Honestly? I would have liked Bait a heck of a lot more if it wasn’t about deadbeat junkies, who I couldn’t have cared less about. Did I care that what they were going through was barbaric? No, not really. Did I care if they all died? No, not really. It’s hard to care for characters that are junkies. While I understand drugs are an addiction, I also think that it’s an addiction that starts with you. If you just said no to drugs in the first place, you wouldn’t get addicted. Is that simplistic of me? Who knows. All I know is, I wouldn’t touch drugs with a million foot barge pole.

The plot was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but J Kent Messum should maybe have written about characters we might actually care about. I’d have had WAY more sympathy than I did. As it was, I read the book feeling sick and repulsed and horrified, because it was honestly like no book I’ve ever read. It was vulgar, terribly, awfully vulgar. I think there’s a time and a place for language like that and it just didn’t sit right with me.

But somehow it was still a bit addictive. I FINISHED IT AFTER ALL. I’ve got no idea why. But, it was relatively short so it only took a few hours. This is definitely one of the weird category, for sure.