The Raft by S.A. Bodeen

The Quick Cut: A teen girl takes a commercial plane back to her isolated home and ends up struggling for life when the plane crashes in the water. A Real Review: It's always smart to be prepared for an emergency, but sometimes life takes you by surprise. What you considered as the unthinkable turns out to be reality and you're forced to react accordingly. This is what happens to Robie. Robie is a teen girl who lives on a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Her family lives and works at Midway Atoll, one of the Pacific islands. Because of it's isolated location, she doesn't get many sources of entertainment or social media. So when she visits her aunt in Hawaii, she totally takes advantage. However, when the commercial flight back home experiences engine trouble, she ends up in the water with one of the pilots. Can they survive and get rescued? I discovered this book through my local library and thought the premise sounded interesting. It's like the movie Cast Away while still at sea and with a teen girl featured primarily. While the pacing was definitely slower than my normal reading material, that pace for with the story being told. It made the experience more enjoyable and the elements of the story more highlighted. Robie lives a lifestyle that isn't very relatable to most people. She lives on a remote island where resources are flown in once a month and most entertainment we take advantage of isn't readily available. However, her reaction to ending up in a raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a very relatable one. At first, she's shocked and finds it difficult to do what she needs to survive. Then she slowly gets her inner strength built up and stumbles a bit to keep it going. Seeing her grow and be capable of doing what it takes to survive makes you root for her as a character. An enjoyable reading experience about surviving at sea. My rating: 4 out of 5