Sarah Goodwin

I haven't watched Survivor, which is apparently headed into its 46th season, or since 2000 on the Gregorian calendar. (Clearly, something about the format works for a lot of people). I'm not into mind games, manipulation, or competition, so it mostly fails to hit anything that interests me. However, Stranded was a kindle deal (oh, how those deals get me), had a few 4-star written reviews from my friends, and, most importantly, I was heading off into the rural part of a semi-desert island. This seemed both appropriate and perfect.

Eight people sign up to be contestants on an island survival reality show, four men and four women. Told from the point of view of Maddy, one of the women, it becomes obvious that it didn't go down the way the show's producers hoped. It opens with the future Maddy stumbling onto a beach and asking a woman to call police. Scene ends, and Chapter One starts with the current timeline as the introverted and socially awkward Maddy is interviewing to be a contestant for the show with Sasha. She tries hard to put her best foot forward and leaves a few details out:

"I went to a new doctor for a letter to say I was healthy enough to take part in the show. I was, aside from the therapy I was avoiding and the tablets I had to take, but she didn't have to know about that."

Apparently, according to a podcasts I was just listening to, one of the 'rules' of tv reality shows is that often real people are too boring, so producers go out of their way to pick extreme personalities with unpredictable behavior because those will make for more dynamic viewing. Goodwin has clearly done her research, because among the other contestants for A Last Refuge is Frank, who "appeared to be the kind of middle-class bigot my home village was populated with. I wondered if the producers had picked him for just that reason." There's also Gil, who "spoke loudly, not caring that people nearby were staring. She was also cheerfully ignoring the 'No Smoking' sign in the shelter." And don't forget Maxine, who "reminded me instantly of my mom" and is here to demonstrate the Girl Guides are still relevant.

These very different personalities are tossed together on an island in Scotland with only a few personal supplies and their first starter survival kit and they'll be staying 11 months. It's a nice change on the tropical island premise, with the pressure of winter weather adding an element of stress. There's no voting off or physical competition, only surviving through the winter.

The remainder of the book stays in the main timeline, but it will go back to clips of the interview with Sasha, as well as forward in time, presumably to events that happened after Maddy reached land, asking for police. It is an intriguing format that helps add tension to the story as well fill in some information about Maddy in a more organic, dialogue-focused fashion.

Something about it gave me a [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409l/7624._SY75_.jpg|2766512] vibe, and I don't know if it was a review, blurb, or foreshadowing by Goodwin, so I'm hesitant to say more. I thought it did a solid job with psychological suspense, although a couple of times I felt the build-up was a little forced with its foreshadowing and its personality changes. But it is probably because I haven't internalized the social rules for Survivor the way the rest of the tv-watching populace has.

"The things that started happening to us, after Christmas... I thought it was all just random tragedy; accidents, mistakes. If I'd known then that there was some reason to it, some intent, I don't know if I could have held on like I did."

The ending was quite unexpected. Overall, a lot of fun. Three and a half crisp packets, rounding up.… (more)

In a Nutshell: That lovely cover, the intriguing premise and the strong Goodreads rating promised me a strong, suspenseful thriller. What I got was a mixed bag.

Story:

Eight strangers have been selected for an upcoming reality show whereby they will be spending a whole year together on an isolated Scottish island named Buidseach Island, which means “the witch’s island”. The show is based on the idea that the world has ended and they are the last eight survivors on Earth.
(I’m wondering how to continue without giving spoilers! Ok, I’ll just make it straightforward…)
The group needs to survive in isolation, work in cooperation and somehow make it to the end of their year-long commitment. Will they succeed?
The story is a little bit of Lord of the Flies, Big Brother, Survivor, and Castaway put together in a weird atmospheric kind of setting. The suspense is more about how far human nature can fall than about anything ghoulish.

First things first.
DON’T READ THE GOODREADS BLURB!
It was so irritating to see that it mentions the exact count of the survivors. I found myself doing a mental countdown while going through the audio. At the end, this was the main suspense killer for me and spoiled my whole experience.

Where the book clicked for me:
✔ The author creates the right mood with her descriptions of the island, its remoteness and the slow mental degradation of its inhabitants. In fact, these psychological elements are the highlight of the book and create a fabulous dark and atmospheric setting for the story.

✔ The way drugs and isolation can wreak havoc with the human mind is depicted well. The approach takes ‘survival of the fittest’ to a whole new level.

✔ The eight characters are crafted very well. With four men and four women, there are ample opportunities for the plot to bring in sexual tensions, jealousies, insecurities and leadership struggles.

✔ The first half of the book is more about build-up with not much happening. Interesting, nonetheless, but not ‘unputdownable’. Things turn around at the halfway mark and the writing becomes darker and the characters more complicated and unpredictable. The ending has a little twist which, while not a surprise, will give you satisfaction.


Where the book could have worked better for me:
❌ This book is categorised as a thriller but most of the book is just drama with some atmospheric suspense thrown in. The thrills come only in a few chapters in the second half. So if you are someone like me looking for a nail-biting suspenseful experience, please realign your expectations or you will be sorely disappointed.

❌ The story is dragged in many chapters with too much of internal rationalisation being vocalised. Especially because it is written in first person, some segments sound like someone is whining on and on and on to no end. This further kills the minimal thrill.

❌ I couldn’t really connect to any of the characters. Of course, I didn’t expect to connect with them given how different their circumstances were. But none of them seemed realistic to me. The plot explains why they behave the way they did but it still felt implausible and farfetched. (Could this be my failure to accept the depths of darkness possible in human nature? Could be. Let’s chalk this down to my shortcoming than the book’s.)

❌ I am usually neutral about whether a book is in first person or third person. As long as it is written well, I don’t mind either style. But in this book, I didn’t find the first person narrative working very well. For only one person’s voice to be heard across eight people simply leaves you wondering about what the others were doing, what is she not telling us, is she an unreliable narrator,… Add to this the fact that the character whose perspective we hear in first person is quite irritating and I ended up rolling my eyes more often than sympathising for her.

❌ There is too much of needless foreshadowing in the writing. Rather than serving to increase my suspense, this simply meant that I waited for the upcoming event than wondering when things would change.

❌ The prologue too is a big spoiler because it tells you right at the start that one of the persons survived, and you can even guess who it is because of the writing style. After all, both the prologue and the main story are written in first person. So guess who survived? Yup, the narrator.


The audiobook experience:
The 11 hrs 16 min audiobook is narrated by Esme Sears. I have no complaints about her performance as such. She does her best to bring this book to life and narrates her character well. I had assumed that having so many characters would be a problem in the audiobook as one tends to get muddled up at times. But the writing makes it easy to keep track of who is who, all the more so because we only see things from one character’s perspective. HOWEVER, the story is written mainly in flashbacks with some chapters in the present timeframe. There is no verbal cue to understand when things are moving from past to present and back. With only one narrator, only one character to hear from, and both timelines written in first person, this takes some getting used to and becomes confusing at times. It is quite possible that I might have enjoyed this more had I read it.



I feel that this book ought to work for most traditional thriller lovers. I always find myself setting a higher benchmark for thrillers, no idea why, and hence I end up disappointed more often than not. This is still a good book with some well-written scenes, just not an exceptional one. A one-time read for me, but a must-check-out novel for thriller aficionados. Just remember that the book functions more on “What happened there?” approach rather than a “Who survived?” approach and you’ll enjoy it more than I did.

3.5 stars rounding up to 4.

Thank you, NetGalley, Avon Publishers, and HarperCollins UK Audio, for the audio ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review.



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Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever!, for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun.… (more)

Mila Swift and her husband Ethan are traveling to reach the resort in Germany where her sister (Jess) is getting married. But before they reach the resort their rental car breaks down in a deserted, very snowy area. They discover a nearby village named Witwerberg, take shelter in an empty cabin, and go to sleep for the night. Mila awakens to find Ethan has disappeared without a trace. Then she feels like she is being watched. And with barely any food she has to struggle to stay alive, with the feeling that there is a presence out there, watching her.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It was a very captivating, atmospheric read. I really felt Mila’s isolation and paranoia. The story kept having flashbacks into the past, mostly about Mila’s relationship with her sister Jess. I enjoyed the twists and turns as the story progressed. A fine read by Sarah Goodwin. I look forward to reading more by this author.… (more)

The Resort by Sarah Goodwin had major ups and downs for me. I loved the premise.

“Mila and her husband Ethan are on their way to her sister’s wedding at a luxurious ski resort. When the car engine suddenly stops and won’t start again.
Stranded, with night closing in, they make their way on foot back to where they saw a sign for some cabins.
When they finally reach them, they find the windows boarded up and the buildings in disrepair. They have the eerie sense they shouldn’t be there. With snow falling more heavily, they have no choice but to break into one to spend the night.
In the morning when Mila wakes, Ethan is gone.
Now she is all alone.
Or is she?”

It started off well. The prologue really got me hooked, which is what a good one does. Then we got to the cabins and I was prepared for some thrills, and was looking forward to seeing if they were supernatural or man made. This started off great too… and then it started to drag, but I kept reading because I really was invested. And then it dragged some more. After that part we get to almost the end. There’s not a lot of suspects so it’s really easy to figure out who it is. So that wasn’t great. Then Mila starts to piece it together and that was interesting. And then the conclusion to why, and while it was fine, I also found it not as thrilling as I had hoped.
Was it written well? Yes. Were the characters developed? Yes. Even with the dragging of the middle and the not super realistic, in my mind, conclusion would I recommend to give The Resort by Sarah Goodwin a read? Yes.… (more)