Book: Reckless Girls
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Pages: 320
Read in: ~3.5 hours
Read on: Kindle
Plot Summary:
ONE ISLAND
Beautiful, wild, and strange―Meroe Island is a desolate spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. It’s the perfect destination for the most adventurous traveler to escape everything... except the truth.
SIX VISITORS
Six stunning twentysomethings are about to embark on a blissful, free-spirited journey―one filled with sun-drenched days and intoxicating nights. But as it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in, sending them on a dangerous spiral of discovery.
COUNTLESS SECRETS
When one person goes missing and another turns up dead, the remaining friends wonder what dark currents lie beneath this impenetrable paradise―and who else will be swept under its secluded chaos. With its island gothic sensibility, sexy suspense, and spine-tingling reimagining of an Agatha Christie classic, Reckless Girls will wreck you.
Things I Liked:
1. The premise was quite interesting. A deserted island with an interesting (read bloody) past and hints of something sinister happening there. A group of twenty somethings showing up there hoping for adventure and then things going wrong! What is not to like, eh?
2. The book is taut and fast-paced. There is a lot happening between the group of people reaching Meroe island and each of their backstories plus their group dynamics. Each chapter keeps you gripped and you keep on reading with this sense of everything not being as casual or coincidental as it seems. In that sense, this is a fairly unputdownable book.
3. We get to know a little bit about each of our six characters. There is not enough space for proper character study, given the structure of the narrative, but we get to know the six young people just enough. Lux, our protagonist, seems lost and looking for a great adventure to take her away from the grief of losing her mother, not being able to finish college and being stuck in minimum wage jobs. Nico, the rich kid, wants to sail around the world and away from his lawyer-filled family. Brittany, who has lost her whole family in a car crash and is escaping her pain by backpacking around the world. Amma, who has lost her boyfriend in an accident is also following a path similar to Brittany's. We don't get to know much about Jake and Eliza- the couple who were already on the island on their luxury boat- but that's okay.
4. The backstories of each of these people are also kept short and to-the-point. Would we have benefitted from knowing more about each of them and what drives them and motivates them to do what they do? Perhaps. But it is not really needed.
5. The catalyst for events taking a turn on the island is innocuous enough, but that is how most catalysts of big events are. You don't think that this will lead to so much going wrong, but it does. It is like throwing a cat amongst the pigeons and it works to shake things up and start the beginning of the end.
Things I Didn't Like:
1. The story moves really well up until the ~70-75% mark. Things on the island start getting tense due to the aforementioned catalyst (don't want to spoil the book so, not mentioning it here) and the group of six sort of splinters into a unit of two and a group of four. Then some dead bodies are found etc. All of that is fine. It was even nicely done- the splintering of the group etc. However, the big twist-in-the-tale is sort of guessable, which was not a deal breaker for me, but the direction Lux takes due to all of these events just doesn't make sense! True, we don't really get to know her a lot, but of the six characters in this book, we know Lux the most. So, it is fair to say that she didn't seem like someone who'd do what she did. The ending was quite disappointing because it was so illogical!
Rating: 3.5/5
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