Review: The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

Release Date: August 21, 2012
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 231
Genre: YA Survival
Source: ARC
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Haunt Author: Website | Facebook

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.

Robie is visiting her aunt in Hawaii when her aunt has to leave to Los Angeles for business. Robie begs to stay by herself and her aunt agrees on the condition that her friend checks in on her. Well her friend ends up being busy so Robie is left all alone. She is scared and is even grabbed by a crazy person on her way home from McDonalds onenight so Robie decides she wants to head home early after all and gets on the small cargo shipment heading to her small home island Midway. A storm hits and the engines die. They have to make an emergency landing and the co-pilot Max throws her out of the plane and they end up floating on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

This is a rather hard book for me to review because there is basically only one character the entire book and I didn't enjoy Robie too much. Max is injured and ends up sleeping basically the entire book. It is mostly just Robie freaking out and trying to survive. I enjoyed the book but didn't love it. Part of it may also just be that I'm a big fan of these types of books so I have read a lot of them and this one didn't really bring anything new to the table. I'm no survival expert myself, far far from it lol, but some of the things Robie did were beyond annoying and stupid to me. For example, she lit a flare before she even saw the plane and lit a smoke flare instead of a flame flare. I'm like really...can't you look carefully at the flare before you waste one of only a few. She does quite a few things like this throughout the story. Like also jumping into the water without closing her backpack!

Then the other thing I didn't really like I can't actually tell you about because it was a little twist to the story. It was an interesting twist and I admit I should have seen it coming but didn't. I was just annoyed by what was happening and then when the twist was revealed I was like oh that explains it but I just don't like that type of twist. I probably made you want to read the book just based on that now hehe but it is definitely still worth reading. It just wasn't the greatest survival story for me personally. It was a short and fast read and I did enjoy watching Robie survive through some pretty horrible things. She was strong at times but at other times I was just irritated with her. The story also had some really sad parts as well such as when Robie did finally get to know a little bit about Max. I was kind of disappointed with that part because I thought there would be some romance but there was none. But all in all I do love survival stories so I'm happy I read it.

I called out, "Is there anything worse than this?"
Max didn't answer for a moment.
Then, finally, he said, "Yes."
He didn't elaborate.
And I was glad. Because I didn't really want to know what could possibly be worse.

Rating: 3/5 Stars!

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