(Review & Giveaway!) On The Island By: Tracey Garvis Graves

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On The Island

Author: Tracey Garvis-Graves

Genre: Women's Fiction/Contemporary 

Release Date: July 10, 2012

Book Description

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.

Review

This was a fantastic story! I have heard of this novel for a while now, and am so glad to have read it, as it was just a refreshing story to me. In the beginning we are swept on a deserted island with T.J. and Anna. They learn to survive together and form a friendship that just seems natural and is of course necessary as they are the only two on the island. As time goes on and they are both growing a little older, Anna in her early thirties, and T.J. in his late teens, does friendship seem natural now or is something more? Well...you just have to find out, and I must say it's worth finding out! I really enjoyed reading this from both T.J.'s and Anna's POV. It just seemed right, as they are the main characters so we read their feelings and thoughts, and I would not want to read it any other way. T.J. and Anna, to me, are likable characters, and you may relate to either or both of them. The two are on island for a while, but Graves has so much to write that even I forgot sometimes that they were still on the island, so I was entertained throughout. Also, Graves has such a wonderful writing style; everything flowed really well. As I was reading, I definitely pictured a film in my head, and hearing some news that this novel is going to be a Motion Picture, is so great; I already can't wait to see it, as this story has so many good feelings, and emotions that will tug you in different directions, but also it has a lot of heart; love. Yes, this is a Novel I very much Recommend! :)

My Rating: 4.5/5

I say in between a PG-13 and a Mild R Rating 
(Some language and mature content)

About The Author

(Biography Via Goodreads)

Tracey Garvis-Graves is the author of On the Island and Covet. She lives in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa with her husband, two children, and hyper dog Chloe. She blogs atwww.traceygarvisgraves.com using colorful language and a snarky sense of humor to write about pop culture, silly television shows, and her suburban neighborhood. You can e-mail her at traceygarvisgraves@yahoo.com. She’d love to hear from you.

Links

Amazon/Barnes And Noble/Goodreads/Author's Website/Facebook/Twitter

***Thank you for participating in the ON THE ISLAND Event! This week in addition to reviews and posts, select blogs are hosting a word from the author's favorite quotes in the book as a Scavenger Hunt! There is one quote from Anna and one from T.J. Visit each stop this week to find the hidden words (they will be numbered for order) and after July 22nd, submit your answer to the quotes here! Random winners for books and swag will be chosen and notified by July 29th.

Also, next week July 23-27, there will be even more events and chances to win the book and swag!

•     Monday, July 23 at 8:00 pm CST - Chat with the author Tracey Garvis Graves! We will be chatting with the author on Savor Chat: http://www.savorchat.com/chat/on-the-island-chat Come join us! (You can sign in with twitter or facebook)
•          Each day look at #ontheisland on twitter for random shout outs to win books and swag! @Tale_of_Reviews
• ON THE ISLAND released in bookstores Tuesday, July 10th! If you see the book in stores or 'in the wild' take a picture. Please tweet it and use hashtag #ontheisland. Or you can post it to facebook! Please submit twitter and facebook links of your post/tweet here!  All entries need to be submitted by July 29th.

*Giveaway*

a Rafflecopter giveaway