An absorbing read - thrilling and moving in equal measures. It kept me guessing to the end!

"The Castaways" by Lucy Clarke has a great premise but turned out to be quite boring: there's no plot twist that hasn't been made painfully obvious in the preceding chapters, and the parts about surviving on a deserted island are awfully generic and naive. It makes me think that the author didn't bother with the research at all: the practical side of scraping off a living from the native flora and fauna is shamelessly glossed over. The characters magically find a fresh water source and then it's just a matter of refilling their bottles; they catch fish and eat mangoes and complain about the mosquitoes and that's it. No parasites, no bad weather, no days when you go hungry...
Even worse, more than a few elements in the book are reminiscent of the first season of Lost, but not in a good way--it feels like a ripoff: the dodgy pilot, the confrontational jerk, the partial flashbacks revealing more and more layers to the characters' backstory, the secret stash of sweets shared with the young mom; there's even a part that's taken straight from the series, when the characters discuss the importance of "keeping the signal fire burning".
And do I even mention how cringey it is that

Spoiler

Lori lets herself be seduced by Felix so quickly and somehow becomes convinced it's true love? You're literally the only woman on the island: that's not true love, that's necessity!

To say nothing about the giant plothole in the ending: how did

Spoiler

Lori manage to disappear without a trace for two years, since she had no money, no documents and no contacts, not for her, not for Sonny? This kind of thing takes careful planning, you can't just waltz off on a whim!