e-ARC, 240 pages
Release Date: June 5, 2018Published by: Bloomsbury
Read from: July 11-13, 2018Stand-aloneSource: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from the Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)TW: N/A
For fans of: Thriller, Horror, Mystery, YAThere’s no hiding on a cruise ship – not even from yourself.
Natalie’s parents are taking her and her three best friends on a cruise for her seventeenth birthday. A sail-a-bration, they call it. But it’s only been a few short months since Natalie’s boyfriend died in a tragic accident, and she wants to be anywhere but here.
Then she meets a guy on the first night and sparks fly. After a moonlit conversation on a secluded deck of the ship, Natalie pops down to her cabin to get her swimsuit so they can go for a dip. But when she returns, he’s gone. Something he said makes her think he might have . . . jumped? No, he couldn’t have.
But why do her friends think she’s crazy for wanting to make sure he’s okay? Also, why do they seem to be hiding something from her? And how can she find him when she doesn’t even know his name? Most importantly, why is the captain on the intercom announcing the urgent need for a headcount?
*MY THOUGHTS*
I’m still not even sure why I gravitated to this one. Her debut was a little too weird for me and I don’t even remember reading her second one because of it. But something made me want to read this one. And this one was just as weird as her first.
“The ones that really sting are simply the ones that weren’t supposed to be next. There’s an order to things.“pg. 43
After “the accident,” Natalie and her friends go on a cruise to help her move on with her life. She just knew that she wouldn’t have a good time. However, she meets someone on the first night and they fall for each other. Hard. But then, he disappears. People begin to speculate that he jumped, but as more information comes in, there’s something a lot more weird going on than Natalie originally thought.
“…the sadness is suffocating. I have to stop looking for the dead in the living.“pg. 67
This book was so weird. There was just too much going on for me. From the sad beginning, to the weird information that comes up about the friend, to the weird stuff that happens on board, to the super weird ending. It was all really strange. And it just made me slog through it.
“Even out here in the middle of the ocean, nothing’s really different. Where ever you go, there you are“pg. 111
As for the plot, the first part of this book, it kind of feels a bit too weird and I wanted to quit reading it. But somewhere along the way I got really interested in the story and was swept away into the mystery. And it turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with this type of “accident” ever. In YA or adult. It’s an interesting concept for a book and I actually kind of liked what Altebrando did with it. Weird or not.
“Where do you hide when there’s nowhere to go?“pg. 170
As for the characters, I wasn’t crazy about them. Really I didn’t like any of them. I really wanted to reach into the book and strangle most of them. And I was really upset at the end with how they were handling the situation that was happening between them.That’s not normal. But I’ll just leave that alone smh
“You want to believe people are good.“pg. 222
But the writing style is why I didn’t rate this a bit higher. Sometimes the language was too flowery. Sometimes it was straight to the point. Other times it was told through a film script. It just made me lose focus sometimes; like I found myself re-reading lines over and over trying to make sure I got the wording right.
“Admit it, you missed me.“pg. 222
This book wasn’t a favorite, but it definitely made me think of people and cruises in a completely different way. I’ve already told my husband, (who’s going on a cruise with his sister and nephew while I’m stuck at summer reading) not to volunteer for anything while there. If you don’t know what I mean, I guess you’ll have to read it to find out!
Overall, I give this
I liked how trippy this was! I met Tara at a book event last month and told her that I'm never going on a crusie because of her. Haha. Also she told me that the twist was pulled from an actual headline. ISN'T THAT CRAZY?