I wanted to love this book so much…
Five Survive by Holly Jackson
- Category – YA Mystery Thriller
- Length – 400 Pages
- Read Time – 1 Day
- GR Rating – 2 Stars
I had high hopes for this book, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder was a good read to me, kept me on my toes turning pages but this one dropped the ball in my humblest opinion. This book is the story of a group of friends, kind of, who go on a spring break RV trip together & people end up dead, let’s get into it.
Teens, Red her best-friend Maddy, their classmate/friend Simon & his friend Arthur are RV’ing to their spring break destination, with Maddy’s older brother Oliver & his girlfriend Reyna tagging along as chaperones. While driving thru the night the RV breaks down on a remote stretch of road & the group quickly comes to realize their breakdown wasn’t an accident. While outside investigating the damage of what they believe to be a debris accident they’re shot at, discovering there is sniper somewhere in the night watching them.
Someone has a secret & that secret may cost everyone in the RV their life if the one with the secret doesn’t reveal themselves. The thing is though, everyone has secrets. I wanted to love this book so much but the story went so ridiculously left so quickly I simply couldn’t. Spoiler it’s a mafia revenge plot. Corruption, crooked power hungry attorney, teen mafia spy, crime witnesses & fake crime witnesses & of course teens hiding having killed someone. It was just all too far-fetched, I know it’s a YA fiction but can we get some believability. I rolled my eyes one too many times to like this book, the eye rolls being what propelled me at lighting speed thru the story.
The teens spend the night arguing in the RV about how to possibly survive this, about who is the one with the secret & about how they’re not all really friends for real. Very teen melodrama until these very series secrets they all hold come to light. The sniper in the night plot was the over exaggerated cherry on the far-fetched storyline. Why not simply tell the group what the secret pertained to, that would’ve gotten to the point real quick & yes I know ofcourse the story is going to draw out the point because otherwise there’s no story but I mean come on, for real. We’re setting up such specific details, when & where they’ll “break down” for maximum remoteness, ensuring the group won’t be able to get any outside communication via their cell phones & planting a secret spy accomplice into this small group, just to get to the moment & hope for a blind confession. Again this is supposed to be a powerful crime family. This book was just too over the top in the doesn’t make sense category for me.
I hate that I didn’t love this book because I’m not done with the AGGGtM series yet, & unfortunately this book has kind of turned me off to this authors writing for now.
Thank you for joining me for another review, I’d love to read your thoughts on my review & of course on the book too.
- Have you read this book?
- What was your favorite part? (Being done with the book)
- What was your least favorite part? (Not loving the book)
- How many stars do you rate this book?
Hasta la próxima – V
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