Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Do love survival stories set in jungles featuring an array of high school students? Then boy oh boy, do I have a book for you!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

Survival. It’s a concept these high school students never had to consider–until their plane crashes in a remote rainforest with no adults left alive. With many of them falling prey to threats from both the jungle and man, they soon realize that danger comes in many sinister forms.
Tom Calloway didn’t want to go on a field trip to Costa Rica, but circumstances had him ending up sitting in the back of the plane–which was the only part that was intact after the crash in the remote South American wilderness. Tom and a small group of his classmates are fortunate to be alive, but their luck quickly runs out when some of them fall prey to the unfamiliar threats of the jungle–animals, reptiles, insects, and even the unforgiving heat. Every decision they make could mean life or death.
As the days go by and the survivors’ desperation grows, things get even more perilous. Not everyone can cope with the trauma of seeing their friends die, and a struggle for leadership soon pits them against each other. And when they come across evidence of other people in the middle of the rainforest, does that mean they’re safe–or has their survival come to an even more vicious end?

This book was really interesting, but unfortunately I didn’t love it.

The beginning of the book started off really strong. I LOVED the prologue, and truly don’t think I’ve ever read a better one! The first 50 pages were also excellent and written very well. However, it slowly went downhill from there. By the end of the book, I thought that it started to drag on. This book could definitely have been cut by at least 100 pages. At least 100 pages of the book were them walking through the jungle and discussing there food/drink supply, and how they all hated Joel, their “leader”. The ending was also super anti-climactic and really sudden. It felt very forced, which I obviously did not enjoy.

Within the first 50 or so pages, a conspiracy theory is brought up regarding why their plane crashed. I would have loved to have dived deeper into the theory, as I thought it was super interesting. And while it makes sense that no questions/theories were ever solved, I would have had such a better time reading about this if the theory was discussed more.

The characters in this book were quite good, but by the end I found them annoying and their dialogue very, very, VERY repetitive. I swear they said the same five things 100+ times throughout the book!

Overall, I didn’t love this story, and rated it 2.5/5 stars. However, if you enjoy survival stories, I would definitely give this one a try!

Thanks to Hachette Book Group for sending the ARC my way!