Hey, everyone! I’m back!! The school year is always tough for me when it comes to reading because I’m an English major. It is SO hard to read for fun as an English major because I have to read so much every day because it is my homework. However, I’m hoping that I will have more time from now on. I know I say that in almost every post, but I’m saying it today because I’ve actually made a few adjustments to my schedule: I’m going to aim to take fewer class credits for the rest of my college career. Until this point, I’ve been taking the maximum amount of credits because I thought I should if I could; however, I realized that, at times, it was hindering me from achieving the quality of life that I wanted.

Since I’m taking fewer classes, I have more time and less homework. The other night, I saw that the Goodreads Choice Awards were starting, and I wanted to vote. However, I didn’t know any of the books in any of the categories. I promised myself that I would read at least one book and vote for it if I liked it. I randomly chose Five Survive by Holly Jackson, and I was pleasantly surprised with my pick!

Five Survive is a mystery thriller novel that follows a group of six friends as they are making their way to a campsite in an RV. The novel is in third-person point of view, but it mainly focuses on Red and her thoughts/emotions. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong for the group: no service, no map, getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, and having your tires shot by a sniper with a rifle gun who won’t let you go until they get what they want.

The story was pretty fast-paced, which kept me intrigued and helped build tension. However, the pace may have caused the depth of each character to suffer. The fast pacing may have been the objective though since the author chose to have the story in third-person. I think the author also used free indirect discourse (this is my English major coming out). I’m currently in a creative writing class, and from my understanding, free indirect discourse conveys certain thoughts or emotions that make a third-person narrative feel like a first-person narrative.

In the novel, Red is pretty much the main character, and the narrative shares her racing thoughts and abundant guilt. In the beginning, Red reminded me of a philosophical, angsty teenager who likes to wear all black. Her thoughts were very deep even when the situation was light-hearted. I like Red, but her personality is made up of memories. The novel inserted her mom into everything, and I don’t know if I can describe Red’s actual personality. That may be the point of the novel since Red is shown to be overwhelmed by guilt and has had to deal with shame for many years. However, at times, it felt like the novel was pushing it too much.

Oliver really sucks, and I don’t like him…which is good because that’s how he was created. I wish that I had more insight to their pasts though. I want to feel attached to the characters’ relationships with each other. I especially wanted to know more about Red and Arthur. When did he start liking her? Why did he initially want to protect her?

⚠️SPOILER ALERT MAYBE⚠️ I also don’t understand why the group didn’t just ask the sniper if it was Red’s secret he was after. That’s what they did for Reyna, and the sniper said he didn’t want her secret. Instead of doing that and being rational, Oliver decided to throw her out of the freaking RV! Like, what the heck?! Oliver is such a narcissist, and I was so worried that Maddy was going to be like him too. I’m still curious though about who voted the second “yes” for Red to get thrown out of the RV. Also, I think deep down I knew something was going to be revealed or be sketch about Arthur, but I was in denial. He was just so sweet, so I wanted to believe he was just in love with Red and that was the full length of his role😭 The police conversation transcription and the letter at the end was a nice touch though. ⚠️SPOILER OVER⚠️

The fast pace of the novel wasn’t necessarily bad though. It caused me to stay up until 1am because I couldn’t put the book down (aka my phone since I was using Libby💖). The progression, ideas, and twists were all so cool! I really want to ask Holly Jackson how she came up with all the different scenarios and escape plans and in which order they came to her in.

Rating: 8.74/10

Thank you everyone for checking out my blog! Have you read any books that are nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards? Let me know in the comments which book(s) you have read and if I should give them a try. I hope you all enjoyed reading. See y’all in the next post~