I am desperately seeking a kick-ass survival book. If I hear that a book involves lifeboats and/or being marooned on a island, I am all over it.

As a result, I had high hopes for S.A. Bodeen’s young adult survival novel, The Raft. 

Unfortunately, like the other survival story I read this year, The Lifeboat, The Raft didn’t live up to my (very high) expectations. With that said, I think there’s an audience that will enjoy this lost-at-sea, Hatchet-style novel.

Robie is a 15-year old with an unusual life. Her parents are researchers and she lives on Midway Island. She frequently hops a ride on the cargo plane between Midway and Honolulu, where her aunt lives and has a measure of independence that’s unusual for someone so young. It’s on one of these trips to visit her aunt that she leaves suddenly, following a frightening encounter with a stranger on the street. Because the phone lines are down and her aunt is out of town, no one knows that Robie’s headed back to Midway.

On the flight back, the plane experiences engine trouble and crashes into the sea. The co-pilot she’s never met before, Max, tosses her a life vest and deploys the plane’s lifeboat. Suddenly she and Max are alone in in the boat, adrift at sea. They have no water. They have no food (except a single bag of Skittles). There are sharks. It’s cold, it’s miserable and their only hope is that someone finds the raft—and soon.

Alone with the stinging of my scalp. Alone with the pain in my chest. Alone with the rain on my face. Alone with my freezing wet clothes, clammy dead weight against my skin. My breathing slowed. Alone with the truth…