Book Review: Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

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One Island - Beautiful, wild and strange - Meroe Island is a desolate spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. It's the perfect destination for the most adventurous traveler to escape everything... except the truth. Six Visitors - Six stunning twenty-somethings are about to embark on a blissful, free-spirited journey - one filled with sun-drenched days and intoxicating nights. But as it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in, sending them on a dangerous spiral of discovery. Countless Secrets - When one person goes missing and another turns up dead, the remaining friends wonder what dark currents lie beneath this impenetrable paradise - and who else will be swept under its secluded chaos. With its island gothic sensibility, s3xy suspense, and spine-tingling re-imagining of an Agatha Chrisitie classic, Reckless Girls will wreck you. ~~~~ This book is described as a gothic suspense. A lot of the time when I see a book that is much talked about on Instagram (Bookstagram), I just put it on my wish list and someone will send it to me. I didn't even read the description before reading it. The cover screams romance to me, but it turned into more of a mystery, suspense, even thriller. Lux and her boyfriend, Nico, take on two college friends on a trip. Basically, they hired him to take them to this abandoned island. When they get there they see another boat with another young couple on board. The six spend time together on the beach eating and partying and sharing boat quarters. Though the chapters were short making this an easy read, I found the story a little slow with a lot of nothing happening at first. Well, what can happen on an empty island? They do some exploring and do find things that represent the history of the island (previous visitors from shipwrecks and the war). Still, those things didn't really move the story along, nor did they really come up again. This book was pretty confusing for me, especially at the end. Too many names. Don't know whether they were aliases or not because some were definitely using aliases. And people staying on a deserted island for the fun of it wasn't all that exciting. And I don't know if there were two different people named Bobby, or whether they were the same person. So I was left with more questions than answers. The story was also told in a "then" and "now" storyline. The short chapters pushed me to keep reading. I was waiting for the excitement, the thrill, the mystery... something. It just wasn't that great for me. The star ratings on this book run the gambit from one star to five so I guess you'll just have to decide for yourself if you like this story. I gave it 3 stars, which is not considered a bad rating.