My third read of the year was Five Survive by Holly Jackson, I bought this from a WHsmith before a holiday… two years ago and it has been staring at me from my shelf since then.
Plot summary
Six teenagers go on a cross country drive in an old RV, when they blow a tyre on a country back road, they innocently think it’s an accident. Until they replace the tyre, begin to drive away and all four tyres are blown out… and this time it was definitely a gun shot. Somehow the shooter gets a walkie-talkie into the RV and he informs them that one person in the RV has a secret and no-one will be leaving until that person confesses.
How many secrets can six teenagers have between them? What could anyone have done that was bad enough to cause a sniper to set up a trap for them.
My thoughts
Although this book is technically YA I don’t think that took away from how heart pounding this story was. The unreliableness of Red as a narrator and the way her thought process tends to drift and focus on random details, really added to how hectic and confusing this story was. I didn’t figure out what the secret was and how everything linked together, I thought the reveal was pretty good and how the story wraps up was quite satisfying. I don’t really read thrillers but my mum does love to watch stuff like this so I’ve seen a lot of things in this genre and this stood up to what I’ve seen before. I felt like you really feel that feeling of being trapped in the RV for hours and I really liked how who the threat was flip around.
Antonia Bernardin 