Shipwrecked by Siobhan Curham
Genre: Supernatural, Romance, Contemporary
Published By: Electric Monkey
Pages: 342
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon
This was book I picked up from the library, for no other reason than it was new. I was the first to get it out (always an achievement) so now, I’ll share my opinion.

The book is blurbed to be about a group of dancers that get shipwrecked on a deserted island, which definitely means it isn’t really deserted, and their struggle to be rescued. The fact that they are dancers is almost (or completely) irrelevant to the plot and the books is also described as Gossip Girl meets Lost. Having watcher neither of these shows, I found it super helpful. I can guess that Gossip Girl is about superficial Barbie girls and Lost is about getting stranded on a not-s0-deserted island.

The only character I really liked in the book was Grace, the protagonist, which I guess is lucky since I couldn’t escape her point of view like I can escape Jason’s in the Heroes of Olympus. She was very witty to begin with and I could relate to her on some level, unlike the rest of the characters who seemed very self absorbed.

I don’t really understand how timid girls are always best friends with the party girls in books. It seems completely unrealistic to have a best friend that you have so little in common with, and then get upset when you don’t stay friends forever because you’re so different. That was definitely something that bothered me, and I couldn’t have been more happy when Grace decided to befriend the less annoying people she was shipwrecked with.

On that note, I did like the romance between the Spanish tour guide, Cruz, and Grace. It was very sweet, especially when it turned out Cruz could speak English and they could communicate with something other than sign language. I’m pleased that Grace found her dream boy on the freaky island – at least someone was happy.

Creepy things kept happening to the shipwrecked dancers, that were very anticlimactic in my opinion, but hinted at the existent of a supernatural force (no doubt it was evil.) It certainly managed to scare the two girls Jenna and Cariss, and their lapdogs Todd and Ron into leaving the island with no survival back up plan.

I felt like a lot of what was happening on the island could have been told definitely within 300 pages. All the events felt quite repetitive and drawn out which made the book feel like it was going on forever when, really, the dancers were only stranded for around four days.

There is a sequel, which I will read if my school library gets it, because these aren’t books that I’d invest in myself. Everything started to come together a bit at the end, but had the similar anticlimactic feel as the rest of the book. Overall, I’d give this book 3 stars as it was enjoyable but not really something I’d normally pay attention to. There’s a lot that could be done with the sequel, so I look forward to seeing what happens next….on the island. (There’s a lot of dramatic chapter endings, of course.)