The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco

The quick cut: A Hollywood film crew ignores the warnings.of locals and decides to film at an island that is by local legend said to be cursed.

A real review:

Curses, evil, and monsters are things that typical society believes to be nothing more than fantasy. For a chain of Filipino islands, it is very much a reality at the island of Kisapmata.

A Hollywood film crew has paid off plenty of local folks in order to get the permissions needed to film a documentary style show on the island of Kisapmata. Rumored to be cursed and having killed many people, the locals refuse to get anywhere near the island. The crew pays off a local teen named Alon to be their guide and help them find all the best places to film. Will Alon be able to keep them safe? Or will the island's cursed legends turn out to be real?

Wow, this book takes a lot of twists and turns that keep the story interesting. How I felt about the characters definitely changed as I got farther into the story and now at the end, I'm still surprised at how it went.

Alon is a local teen who the crew pays to guide them and help them out. He's intimately familiar with the island and it's idiosyncrasies, in a way that no else is aware of. He not only spends time there, he does what he can to protect the crew who have come there. The story comes mostly from his perspective, but it's fascinating to see how clear it is that you never truly know where his allegiance lies.

I read this one via audiobook and the narrator did a great job with making his voice and pacing for the creepiness of the story. It only further added to the entertainment of it and highly recommend!

A spooky story focused on a cursed island.

My rating: 5 out of 5