CURRENTLY READING (#58): THE RAFT BY S. A. BODEEN

 

“I felt an overwhelming need for reassurance, for someone to tell me everything would be okay. That I would be okay. But no one did.” 

“The flotation device was still in my lap, but I didn’t even try to put it on. I couldn’t make myself look at it. None of this was real, none of it. Everything was fuzzy. Dull. None of it could possibly be real.” 

By Wildweasel339

“My heart pounded a little as I crossed the avenue. I’d never realized that I did everything in Honolulu with someone, either AJ or my parents. Come to think of it, everything I did, I did with someone. Even on Midway, when I was alone, people were never very far away.” 

Facts:

Title: The Raft

Author: S. A. Bodeen

Publisher: Square Fish

First Publication Date: 21 August 2012

Format:  Paperback 

Pages: 256

Goodreads Rating: 

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Adventure, Survival, Suspense, Action... 

First Lines

The dude with the lime-green Mohawk and dark wooden plugs in his earlobes looked down at me, the long silver needle in his rubber-gloved hand pointed directly at my face.

"Wait." I swallowed and gripped the arms of my chair. 

Jutting out one hip, he rolled his eyes. "Do you want your nose pierced or not?" 

"Yes, just... Can you tell me something worse?" I pointed at the needle. "Something that is worse than that?" 

Synopsis: 

Robie is an experienced traveler. She's taken the flight from Honolulu to the Midway Atoll, a group of Pacific islands where her parents live, many times. When she has to get to Midway in a hurry after a visit with her aunt in Hawaii, she gets on the next cargo flight at the last minute. She knows the pilot, but on this flight, there's a new co-pilot named Max. All systems are go until a storm hits during the flight. The only passenger, Robie doesn't panic until the engine suddenly cuts out and Max shouts at her to put on a life jacket. They are over miles of Pacific Ocean. She sees Max struggle with a raft.

And then . . . she's in the water. Fighting for her life. Max pulls her onto the raft, and that's when the real terror begins. They have no water. Their only food is a bag of Skittles. There are sharks. There is an island. But there's no sign of help on the way.

“The falling lasted forever, my arms windmilling in the void. I wanted to stop moving. Stop the noise. Stop the wet. Stop the cold. Stop the blowing. Stop everything.”