Book Review of Savage Island by Bryony Pearce | Blog Tour
Today is my stop on The Savage Island Blog tour! I’m so excited. I really enjoyed this book and I also really love the author, Bryony Pearce. I love how her mind works to bring us a chilling book like this! This will be a spoiler free review.
Savage Island (Red Eye) by Bryony Pearce Published by Stripes Publishing on April 5th 2018
Genres: Young Adult, Horror
Pages: 416
Goodreads
When reclusive millionaire Marcus Gold announces that he’s going to be staging an “Iron Teen” competition on his private island in the Outer Hebrides, teenagers Ben, Lizzie, Will, Grady and Carmen sign up – the prize is £1 million pounds … each. But when the competition begins, the group begin to regret their decision. Other teams are hunting their competitors and attacking them for body parts. Can the friends stick together under such extreme pressure to survive? When lives are at stake, you find out who you can really trust…
A Red Eye horror novel for teens, this gripping YA thriller story is full of fast-paced action.
When I started reading this, even though I KNEW it was a Red Eye book, even though I had HEARD from Bryony herself that this was a horror… I kind of forgot. I half expected that they would be faced by difficulties and then they’d overcome them, you know, like YA characters usually do. HAH. Oh sweet summer child.
Something quite shocking happens quite early on and I was just… gob smacked. It just horrified me. Like I said I had conveniently forgotten it was a horror. It felt real. The characters as a whole were relatable – in the face of such awful circumstances, they try and keep their integrity.
It’s a whirlwind adventure where teens are faced with desperately trying to survive in an awful situation that they got themselves into. The whole concept is so fascinating – what would you be willing to do to survive?
Geocaching just became life and death.
Savage Island is fast paced. Things just get worse and worse for our characters and as they’re bumbling about speculating what’s going on you just want to scream RUNNNNNNN. It is brilliantly set out, getting darker and darker, never giving too much away to the reader as to what’s going on.
The present timeline of the group trying to survive on the island is complimented with flashbacks into Ben and Will’s past. It’s quite dark, and could be triggering to some with mental health issues explored there. We only get snippets of their childhood, culminating at the end when we realise what is going on.
I really don’t want to go into too much detail because YOU NEED TO READ THIS.
Okay so I can’t say what I really want to about the characters because I really don’t want to give any spoilers. The characters are all very different and very well developed. They each have their own demons and their journeys are very believable.
How far would you go in the name of family, friendship, your own survival?
It really makes you question, what would you do? How would you react?
I hope you enjoyed this review! These reviews are always hard to do because I really don’t want to give anything away. Just trust me when I say, you need to read this.
Have you read it yet?
2 Comments
Ooo geocaching plus horror sounds really interesting! I know you couldn’t give very much away in your review, but I’m intrigued 🙂
Definitely be intrigued! It’s fascinating and terrifying at the same time.