3.5 stars rounded up!

Many thanks to Netgally and Harper Audio for providing me with an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for my unbiased review. This review was written voluntarily and all opinions herein are my own.

Look, when I saw the blurb of this book, I knew it was something I'd want to read because it was right up my alley! I put in a request immediately and when I got the approval email, I was so excited. I went into this with a lot of expectations, and it mostly lived up to them. This is my first C.L. Taylor book, and I might just check out more in coming months.

This book was well written with an insane amount of adventure and it messes with your mind. I was really invested in the mystery and wanted so desperately to get to the end of things. It started on such a high and there was so much mystery built around the characters which ultimately fell flat for me. I would have enjoyed a different and darker ending, but at the end of the day I also appreciate the issues the author brought to light though the ending. Issues such as PTSD, dealing with the death of a loved one, and feeling left out were highlighted throughout the book.

I had a lot of trouble connecting to the characters and I can't even say for certain if there was any racial diversity among the friends. They all seemed to me like a bunch of spoilt rich kids whining the week away. 

The blurb also seemed to oversell the mystery of the book. The mystery and events of the book are strong enough to keep the reader immersed - I could not put it down at all. I expected something very different going in, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the story I got.

If you're looking for a fun and fast paced YA Thriller, I can definitely recommend this one!

Thanks to HarperCollins UK Audio/HQ Young Adult   for the opportunity to listen to this book.   This is the second book I have read by CL Taylor, having just enjoyed Strangers  and I definitely enjoyed The Island as much as the first.

The book was narrated by Olivia Dowd; Sam Newton and Sarah Ovens and they did a really good job

The best way to describe it, is a mix of Lost and Hunger Games and it is.  Six teenagers are on holiday in Thailand and the teenagers go  to a remote island with a guide who dies of a stroke quite suddenly and they are left to fend for themselves and survive against the odds.  is someone watching them? Their paradise turns into their worst nightmares  as their worst fears  start to come true.  What's going on and will they all survive?  
It may be listed as a Young adult book and addresses various traumas that the teenagers are going through, but is equally as good a read for an adult. Great characters and personalities.

I felt I was on the Island too as the author described the location really well. 

A thoroughly great adventure with plenty of mystery and twists and turns.

Thank you so much to Harper Collins UK Audio and Netgalley for the arc copy of this book that comes out on 21st January 2021. This is my second C.L Taylor book as i also received an arc copy a few months ago of Strangers which i enjoyed. 
This book is marketed as Lost meets The Hunger Games, for me it was more like Lost meets Lord of the Flies/And Then They Were None. When six teenagers jet off to a remote island off the coast of Thailand for a week of surviving off the land tragedy strikes when their 60 something year old guide dies and they are stranded on the island for 7 days. The teenagers comprise of three girls and 3 boys, Danny and his girlfriend Honor, Jefferson, Jessie and siblings Milo and Meg. (sorry if ive spelt any of them wrong, i listened to the audio) 

During the first night the teens are discussing phobias around the campfire, over the coming days the group are targeted by inflicting their phobia on them. The group are unsure if its one of them or an outsider doing this to them. All they know is that they need to survive the seven days and when they dont return they presume their parents will raise the alarm and they will be rescued. 

Ok lets start with the things i liked, i really enjoyed the premise i do like remote island stranded survival stories. I thought there was good back stories for a few of the characters particularly Jessie, Danny and Meg, i would have liked to have seen Jefferson, Milo and Honor having a bit more of a background too. I enjoyed the chapter splits and that it didnt follow all 6 of the teens as that would have been confusing, i also really liked how there were multiple narrators this made it so much easier for me to concentrate on who was who, i really struggle with multiple POV sometimes. 

Things i didnt care for as much: it all seems a bit unrealistic to me, whose parents at that age would let teens wild on a remote island with a randon 60 year old man as a guide and not panic when none of the parents heard from them at all as all of their phones died within the first 24 hours. Unexperiened teens would have been given rigorous survival training before attending something like this surely? I thought the ending was a tiny bit predictable towards the end (i wont say much more than that as i want this to be spolier free but the author gives you too many clues in order for you to work it out) for the first half the author did do a good job of leading you to believe that it could be any of them and subtley gives them all a motive which was interesting.

All in all it was fast paced and a quick read, it only took me a few hours of listening on 1.75 speed. I would read more of C.L Taylors work as shes really up and coming in the thriller world.

This ‘Survivor’ style story of a group of teenagers stuck on an island off the coast of Thailand was a very easy and enjoyable listen! 
The story is mostly narrated by Jessie, who is just recovering from a tragedy of her own, and Danny, who is worried about losing his girlfriend Honor. The drama begins when their tour guide dies and they find themselves with no way off the island - and then suddenly their phobias are all beginning to come true. Will they make it off the island alive? 
This was a great way of looking at the effects of grief, trauma and mental health illnesses, and I loved how current it felt for the friends to be the children of an NCT group! Whilst the story sometimes felt quite melodramatic, I just had to remember that actually, as a teenager everything did feel like the end of the world so the writing is pretty spot on for this age range! 
There was plenty of excitement and action, as well as tender moments, and I was certainly left guessing right until the end so that is always a big tick for me! 
From an audiobook perspective, I found the narrators very easy to listen to and was able to get really absorbed in the story, so I’d happily recommend it.
Overall, whilst it wasn’t overly heavy or emotional, this was still a great, exciting and fun read!

Such fun book to listen too! Excellent narration keeping you engaged. Great story and writing. Loved the whole experience. 
Thanks a lot to NG nad the publisher for this copy.

This was an excellent book to listen to. I loved the narrators and they kept me really interested in this great story.  A well deserved 5 star listen.

I loved this book!  It is set on a remote jungle island where six seventeen year old friends go on a holiday adventure together, but things keep going wrong.  The book is very exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed it, always wanting to read on to find out what happened next.  I liked all of the characters and the story.  I would like to see this book made into a movie.  

The audiobook narrators were great and they projected the suspense of the story fantastically.  The netgalley app worked well for me.

Highly recommended!

Many thanks to the author, publisher and netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was initially attracted to the cover of ‘The Island’, being youthful and captivating it is fitting for this YA psychological thriller.

The story often conjured up images of the Bear Grylls series of the same name, as this story also features young Brits struggling with survival in pretty extreme jungle conditions.

6 friends united from birth due to NCT group connections find themselves, aged 17, holidaying in Thailand, where they leave their families for a week alone on an uninhabited Island, with only a local guide to rely on.  The group includes Danny and Jessie, who share the narration of this book with alternating chapters.

The six teenagers have been holidaying together since they were babies, as their parents had met and bonded at NCT classes. Now it is Jeffers’ 18th birthday and the celebration is a trip to a remote jungle island for a week of foraging, fishing, hunting and swimming with a trusted guide. 
Each teen has a complex backstory and these influence their interactions and the events which dramatically unfold over the first few days. 
The trip turns out to be tortuous for the teens as whatever could go wrong, seems to, and they are plunged into dangerous situations and lives are out in danger. 
No more spoilers. Read this compelling story, which had me wondering all day how the teens would man get their predicament. 
Thus refers to the audio book by CL Taylor and read by three narrators.
Thanks to #NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook in exchange for an honest review

I loved Sleep and Strangers, C.L. Taylor’s most recent books, and couldn’t resist requesting The Island when I saw it was available as an audiobook on NetGalley.

This was a fab audiobook about six teenagers spending a week on a remote island without their phones or any other electronic devices. They’ve known each other all their lives, their parents becoming friends after meeting in a NCT baby group. and then having summer holidays together ever since. They all get along well together, although they obviously have their niggles about each other.

As with most thrillers about a group of friends stuck together, I was expecting there to be lots of unlikeable characters, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I liked all the teens, especially Jessie who was one of the narrators of the story. I really didn’t have a clue what was going on with the story, until just before the big reveal, so it was really nice to have my suspicions confirmed at the end.

I thought this was a great thriller, which had the right amount of tension and twists which didn’t getting silly, as some thrillers can do. In fact it all felt very plausible and as a mother of an older teenager, rather scary! 😱  

The narration by Olivia Dowd, Sam Newton, and Sarah Ovens was very good. I particularly enjoyed Olivia Dowd’s voice talents and will definitely be looking out for more audiobooks narrated by her.

I definitely recommend this if you enjoy YA thrillers on audiobook.

You and your best friends on an isolated tropical island. It’s a teenager’s dream come true, but when the guide who’s supposed to take care of you dies, suddenly, you and your friends are left alone to face an island that isn’t half as hospitable as you’ve been led to believe. This contemporary take on Lord of the Flies is a thrilling adventure, exposing the dark side of humanity. The cast of readers does a superb job of capturing the angst, tension and fear

This is pitched as a YA novel but don't let that put you off.  I  really enjoyed the book but did keep picturing my teenagers who are around the same age. 

The premise is interesting - if a little strange that this group go off for holiday every year since birth but went with it.  Once it got to the island it got really interesting and I really did want to find out who did it so listened to about an hour or two a day. 

There were tidbits everywhere where I wanted to know how  they fitted together and I liked the way that they were all tied up in the end. 
The narration is really good and I like the fact that there were two voices one male and one female. 

I was given an advance copy of the book by netgalley in exchange for an honest and fair review which I have done.

This is my first book from this author, and wow, what a book to start with! 

I was instantly drawn into the story with the mystery of the secret that was being referred too and also by the series of events that began to start happening once they were on the island. I felt like I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on and also who was responsible for it, to the point where I just didn’t want to stop listening because I was desperate to find out! 
This book is told brilliantly with the dual narrative and really gives a great perspective from Danny and Jessie’s points of view.
I loved how the book ended too and it really does make you think about certain things (no spoilers) 
I have to give a big shout out to the narrators for the telling of this story, they were fabulous!! I immediately felt the tension, the fear and the mysteriousness of what was going on on the island that the book is set on. There’s a scene where a character has a panic attack and oh my days, my heart felt like it was also racing with panic with them. Such brilliant storytelling. 

Great story and a fabulous read

This was so good! I listened to it as an advance copy of the audiobook and absolutely loved it. If you love CL Taylor you’ll love this, don’t let the fact it’s written as YA put you off, it just means it’s packed with a bit more action

Enjoyed this one and had it finished in no time (lots of cleaning) 😉. Good storyline that kept you guessing. Loved the different narrators, it adds something to a listen when told from each characters perspective but each one having there own voice so to speak. Makes you feel a part of story. Worth a listen 👂...

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins UK for the opportunity to listen to and review this ARC that’s due to be published on the 21st of Jan.

Really enjoyed this, what happens when 6 friends go away to an idyllic island , well let me tell you get the book to find out cause it was one hell of a read, loved it x

I’m really starting to enjoy YA thrillers and knowing C.L. Taylor also writes adult thrillers, I was eager to check this one out. I was granted the audio book through NetGalley and I started listening to it pretty much straight away.

The Island follows six teenagers on a group holiday together. During the trip, they wind up on a survival trip on an island with a guide. But when that guide has a stroke, they find out they are stranded on the island and soon all their phobias are being thrown at them. The book is narrated by Jessie and Danny. Jessie lost her brother a while ago and this the first group holiday since and Danny is worried that his girlfriend, Honour wants to move on from him.

With thrillers, it’s important for the twists aren’t obvious and that the atmosphere is really good. The story was interesting, and it was really quick to get through as, yeah, I wanted to know what happened yet. But it wasn’t as tense as I’d hoped and not at all scary. I didn’t really like how the phobias were handled. It just…didn’t feel like much happened with any of them, and though the end twist is the reason why this is the case, it was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for something that would keep me on edge and freak me out. But I didn’t really get that. And the final twists just seemed obvious.

The characters were interesting though. None of them felt like characters I’d seen before and I wanted to know more about them. Things between them were tense and the relationships and issues worked really well. There was some romance, but, aside from the couple who were together at the start. It didn’t really feel necessary. Like, you could have cut it out and it basically could have still played out the same.

I wouldn’t say I had fun with this book, but, I did enjoy it, kind of. It’s really hard to say. I enjoyed the process of going through the story and I really didn’t want to put it down. It was really good in that case. But whenever I’m not listening to the book, I can’t really think of anything good about it. I probably wouldn’t want to read this again.

With this being an audiobook, I want to comment on the narrators too. I didn’t really get along with them. I had to listen to it on 2x speed as the way they spoke was so slow and felt so emotionless. It was a little dull. Not sure I’d want to listen to anything by them again. They didn’t change voices for different characters or anything and I wasn’t a fan.

It’s a shame as I was really excited for this book but it definitely wasn’t one for me. Not sure I’ll be reading anything else by C.L. Taylor!

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins and HQ for the ARCs of this book. N.B. I read the first couple of chapters of the written copy and then switched to the audiobook.

‘The Island’ is a YA thriller which follows six teenagers on holiday in Thailand who are stranded on an island where their worst fears start to come true.

It feels a bit like Lord of the Flies mixed with The Beach. It’s a fun, fast-paced read with some exciting sections, but never really feels that high stakes or scary.

I loved the idea of this book. It could have been absolutely thrilling. I thought it was genius to gather a group of teenagers together who are friends because their parents met in their NCT class. This was a perfect setup because they would have known each other their whole lives but wouldn’t necessarily see each other regularly which could lead to distrust and misunderstandings.

Unfortunately, there is a fundamental flaw with the structure of the book. There are two narrators, one is in the first person and one is in the third person. This spoils the whole premise of the book because it signposts immediately who is the ‘villain’ of the piece. You immediately know there must be some information being held back or some kind of unreliable narration going on, otherwise both narrators would be written from the same perspective. It signposts that the danger is coming from within the group and narrows the potential of the storytelling.

I found the final reveal of what was going on completely obvious and unsurprising, despite the book’s attempt to make it an amazing twisty reveal. It completely fell flat for me. Possibly a teenager who has read fewer books would be less likely to spot this problem with the mechanics of the storytelling and would be blindsided by the ending, but I’d be surprised as I found the twist so heavily signposted.

The audiobook has two narrators. I thought the female narration was good but found the male narrator’s voice a bit grating, although he definitely sounded more like a teenager.

I did love this book as I’m a big  fan of the author but whilst the book keeps you hooked, the narrators don’t convey the emotions properly and let down the gem of a book. I can only put this down to the age of the voice actors used.