Hello fellow bookworms!
At the start of the year I announced that I had joined a book club (#TsundokuSquad) and today I am sharing our groups thoughts on our third read of the year. After rating our first two reads a 2 and a 3 star we hoped our next choice would tick all the right boxes. For March we chose to read The Islanders by S.V.Leonard
Title: The Islanders
Author: S.V.Leonard
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Goodreads Rating: 4.17
My Rating:
#TsundokuSquad Average Rating:
Source: NetGalley ARC
Synopsis:
Her dream escape is about to become a nightmare…
Kimberley King has spent the last five years trying to outrun the reason she left the police force. Her life is a mess and she’s desperate for change. So when she is randomly selected for the new series of the hit show LoveWrecked, she can’t pass up the chance to win the £50,000 prize. All Kimberley needs to do is couple up with one of her fellow contestants, win the infamous LoveWrecked challenges, and she will have enough cash for a fresh start.
But the island isn’t the paradise she was promised and within hours, one of the contestants is dead. Then the announcement comes: one of the islanders is a murderer and Kimberley must find out who, live on television. For every hour it takes her, one more person will die.
The game is rigged, everyone is hiding secrets, and time is running out…
#TsundokuSquad Review:
A lot of our members, myself included, are huge fans of crime/thriller reads so this seemed like the perfect choice for us. At less than 300 pages we knew it would be a quick read and we were finally hoping this would be a book we all enjoyed.
Week One
Our first impression was we LOVED it! Within the first few chapters we were all hooked and desperately trying to stop ourselves from reading the whole book in one sitting. We’d met an interesting mix of characters, all of which were definitely hiding something and we agreed they were not chosen to be on the show at random. We all felt that Jack was a very unlikeable character and whilst we wouldn’t wish anyone dead we were glad he was the first to go! There were many predictions of what would happen and who else would die, most of us thought this would be a high body count read! At this point the book was ticking all the right boxes. We were desperate to read on and loved the fast paced drama. There were so many ways this book could go, overall our group rating was a 4 but it had the potential to go higher!
Week Two
By the end of the second week we had another murder and the element of the Judge included, who seems to be running the show! The Judge reminded us a lot of the horror film Saw and we thought the inclusion of it gave the story plenty of drama. We are still unsure who the Judge is or how the murders are being carried out which is making some of us want to read on! A few in the group are finding the story a little over the top and we all hope the ending will be more realistic. With most of the group sitting at a 4 last week a few have dropped to a 3/3.5 but we are all still enjoying it.
Week Three
This week the book divided opinions. Some of us were really enjoying it and thought it was a fun and quick read, others were finding it a little over the top and a bit disappointing. This is what is great about being part of a book club, it would be boring if we all had the same tastes and it’s great to hear the other members of the group’s perspective. At this point in the story Kim was still proving to be useless as a detective and her fellow islanders were turning against her. We all agreed that The Judge definitely had something to do with Kim’s past and the incident but we weren’t sure who their helper was. Some of us thought perhaps Daniel or even Mo? With just 20% to go we were all hoping for a great finale that we all enjoyed.
Week Four
As we reached the end of the book we all agreed that this was a fast paced, action packed read that tied up all the loose ends. We thought it was the perfect length, any longer and our interests would of waivered. We also loved the inclusion of the social media sections to break up the story. Some of us wanted a little more punch to the ending and were a little underwhelmed by it. We also didn’t agree with Kim re-joining the police, lets face it her detective skills weren’t up to much!
With ratings sitting between 3 and 4 stars we averaged 3.5 as a group. This has definitely been our favourite read as a group so far and as things keep improving we’ve got high hopes for April’s book. We have chosen The Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal and I am super excited to start it!
Bookworm Blogger 
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