Review: The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

Title: The Raft
Author: S.A. Bodeen
Series: Stand Alone
Published By: Feiwel and Friends (August 21, 2012)
Source: ARC Provided by the Publisher (In exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
My Rating: 3.5 Stars

Goodreads Description:
 Robie is an experienced traveler. She’s taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll, a group of Pacific islands where her parents live, many times. When she has to get to Midway in a hurry after a visit with her aunt in Hawaii, she gets on the next cargo flight at the last minute. She knows the pilot, but on this flight, there’s a new co-pilot named Max. All systems are go until a storm hits during the flight. The only passenger, Robie doesn’t panic until the engine suddenly cuts out and Max shouts at her to put on a life jacket. They are over miles of Pacific Ocean. She sees Max struggle with a raft.

And then . . . she’s in the water. Fighting for her life. Max pulls her onto the raft, and that’s when the real terror begins. They have no water. Their only food is a bag of Skittles. There are sharks. There is an island. But there’s no sign of help on the way.

My Review:

Right away I related to Robie in this story. I too remember being home alone with my over active imagination, completely freaking myself out at night. It is no wonder she left the island early to go home instead of spending another scary night all by herself, I would have done the same thing.

Of course I would hope that I would have at least told someone where I was going, a note maybe? Something?

And then the worst happens. Something that everyone fears and thinks about as they board a plane to take off, her plane went down. The engines have failed. The inevitable happens. They crash into the water.

And her whole world has changed.

I am going to admit, I started to wonder with the events going on leading to Robie's time in the raft if she wasn't a bit selfish. I know she is only 15 but sometimes her concern for Max's safety and helping him (who is injured) just seemed....off to me.

I couldn't quite figured out what was always going on with them in the story. There were many clues that for whatever reason I just did not pick up.

Maybe I was too tired while reading this one and the clues were just lost on me, or maybe it was intended to be that way so when all was reveled it left you reeling and shocked (which is successfully did as well for me).

Either way, this book was skillfully done and truly was a very interesting read.

It is hard to write anything as I don't want to give away the events of the story but this one is truly a tale of survival and doing what has to be done to live even when it goes against everything you ever thought you would do.

This was a great debut novel and I think we can expect some great things from this author in the future.