The Listed books below I didn't finish because I either lost interest or didn't like them to finish them!

Awesome book if you love Maze Runner or Lord of the Flies... and I do!
I felt that the main character read more like a middle school student at first, but she eventually grew up a little bit.
This book was a fun read and very exciting.

As soon as I saw this book's blurb, I could not wait to read it and it did not let me down! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. Not to be cheesy but I feel honored that I got to read this book before its expected publication date. This book was a page turner and I loved the imagery that the author's writing brought to life. I really did feel like I was immersed in Olive's world, first in her time being bullied in the "real world," and then at the carnival, and finally in the Island. I liked the dichotomy between the Island's beauty and the inhabitants' dark violence and turmoil (definitely delivered on the Lord of the Flies promise).

The only part of the book that I didn't enjoy was the ending. I can't say why without spoiling, but maybe I can leave it at the ending being too cheesy even for me :)

I look forward to more from this author, and I hope she writes more fantasy!

When I first started reading The Castaways, I wasn't sure what to expect. A few hours later, I was turning the last page. The Castaways is an absolute gem of a book and I loved it.

The story does begin with a very brutal, slightly difficult to read bullying scene. We see Olive, the main character, both at home with her family and at school with her tormentors. The juxtaposition really drives home how the bullying has affected every aspect of her life. My heart immediately went out to Olive from page one. After an incident involving hair clippers and bullies, Olive runs into the maze at the Castaway Carnival and finds herself on a deserted island, far from the world she knew.

On the island, Olive meets others who have been stranded there throughout the decades. I don't want to spoil any major plot points but I really enjoyed the plot overall (although it was a lot darker than I'd originally expected). The pacing is excellent and I was constantly engaged.

A good portion of why I loved this book was the secondary characters (okay, mostly just the lions). They were all written very well and I enjoyed the dynamics between them. The author did a wonderful job of showing us the relationships between the characters rather than telling us. Watching the lions, one of the two tribes on the island, adjust to having Olive dumped on them was actually rather fun. The Lions truly felt like a family, with all the bickering, understanding, and love.

Sometimes I would think that a longer time period had passed than actually had since some developed occurred quickly. Then I remembered my personal experiences at sleep-away camp (a poor substitute but the closest I've ever been to Olive's situation). I thought of how much we all changed and grew, and then the timeframe didn't seem quite so difficult to believe.

Now that I've establish that I enjoyed the writing, the plot, and the secondary characters, it's time to talk about my favorite part of the story - Olive Maxi Gagmuehler (what a name!). What I really liked about her is that she wasn't a special snowflake. Had she not encountered the other individuals on the island, she probably would have perished. She gets panic attacks and makes some pretty serious mistakes. Olive is at the island because she was running away. Olive is also smart, empathetic, and brave. Some of the decisions she makes are incredibly difficult and adult ones to make. Full disclosure- I absolutely cried when reading about one of them. As for the romance, all I will say is that I loved how it developed and the choices that Olive made.

The Castaways was a wonderful read and I can't wait to add it to my collection. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to read a good young adult novel or anyone interested in reading a wonderful book about finding yourself.

*Warning - this book does contain some graphic descriptions of bullying.

I really did enjoy this book, so much so that i read it in one go. There are alot of characters in this book, each is unique and memorable and has their own story. It moves along at a great pace, though at the start the bullying scenes were not nice to read, but it added to the suspense and was used well through the story, so was essential .
This book has a Lord of The Flies feel to it, take away the plane crash and have a corn maze instead. Olive Maxi Gagmuelher has run into the maze to get away from a bully Olive has been teased, beaten up and been the victim of bullying for years from the group of girls called The Trio. They cornered her at the Carnival in town and carried on what they had started at school earlier in the day.
The Carnival was there the year before, it has the usual rides, games and stalls you would expect to find and also a Maze in the corn. Last year a young boy entered the maze but never came out.
When Olive enters the maze she is aware of it's history, but regardless it is her only means of escape. She finds herself transported to The Island where she finds that she is not alone.
It is on this island that she finds that she is more than the nobody she feels she is, more than the girl with the name that causes her embarrassment, she is not worthless and a target for school bullies. She is accepted into the group after proving herself worthy, for thinkiing fast and for protecting one of the other children on the island.

Loved this! I really liked the concept and the lessons that the Castaways had to learn about themselves through their journeys. The writing was easy to read and told a really great story. The characters were all great and complex as well and there was great character growth throughout the story. There were a few times where things seemed to come out of nowhere and I was a little confused as to how that solution was reached or what hints I had missed. I also felt there wasn't really any closure between Olive and The Trio - I really wanted that. But overall a great read!

This book has a Lord of Flies type feel. I didn't particularly really like/relate to any of the characters in the book, however, in the latter part of the book Olive was starting to grow on me.

Castaway is wonderfully written, fast paced and gritty. It captured me right from the start with funny characters, interesting ideas and some lovely world building.

Olive is everyone's favourite kid to bully at school. She has a slightly weird name, is a little bit different in that she's not a horrible mean girl, and all she wants is to get on with her life without any hassle. Hassle like being pinned to the bathroom floor by a nasty clique of girls. Hassle like being chased through a maze at the local carnival by the same nasty girls. Hassle like being sucked into some sort of hidden world, with lots of other kids who were running from something through the maze. Because that carnival is full of secrets, but something well established is that every year someone vanishes into thin air in that very maze.

What I like so much about this idea is that it's barely explained for a large portion of the story; the mystery behind the maze really intrigued me. In fact, all we know is that these kids all needed an escape. I love that this kind of helps them fit in, when they otherwise wouldn't have. It's a soppy concept I know, but somehow Fleck makes it really likeable. More than this though, the characters are really unique - mostly because they all come from different years, sometimes a decade apart, but have stopped aging, somehow frozen in time inside their safe little island.

Except the plot thickens. They're not safe at all. There is a war on this island. And Olive and her newly found tribe must work together to avoid being pushed off a cliff by the rogue islanders, and ultimately find a way back home.

The secondary characters are well developed, super likeable and there's a character for any reader in this story because they're all so different. The plot is quite predictable, but it moves so quickly that the excitement of discovering more swiftly counteracts this. Equally, the world building and ways in which the island works are great elements of the narrative with consideration to what island life might be like.

My only complaint was that the story hit me full force with the romance from about half way through. I liked that it was gradually introduced, but I did find it a little cliche, what with the perfectly imperfect nature of Will with his heroic eye patch and slightly crooked nose. I prefer something a little more subtle.

Nevertheless, this is a really great read, with some utterly lovable characters, which I absolutely recommend to anyone looking for a quick, action packed world of fun. Also, how ridiculously beautiful is this cover?

Jessika Fleck created an addicting story that makes you dive full in and not come up for air until you’re done reading the last page. Whether you’re young or young at heart there is something in the story or characters that everyone can find themselves investing in, can discover about themselves.

Since bullying is such a hot button issue in American society right now it’s no surprise Fleck would use this social crime as background for part of her story and as a setting for her character development. After all, seeing a victim progress from a browbeaten kid to a survivor and self-possessed leader is something to behold. I’ve heard it described as something like a combo of Mean Girls and Lord of the Flies and I can see where people would perceive the comparison whereas I’m siding a little more with it being something of a YA version of LOST. There’s plenty of the same adventure and survival instinct that shows up within the characters.

Unlike the reality based Lord of the Flies, this is definitely a Fantasy novel. In LOTF they arrived at the island by a downed plane, here Olive ends up on the island by running into a corn maze as she is trying to escape being abused yet again at the hand of her uncontrollable peers. The detail Fleck puts into building her island world with its two groups of warring kids is incredible and makes you feel like you’re there fighting for your side to win.

I liked how Fleck’s used her various B-list characters to describe and showcase various levels of Olive’s personality; depending on who she was interacting with brought out a different part of her identity much the way we all do. Her characters overall were so realistic, complex and multi-dimensional she was able to display a wide spectrum of human interaction.

Her writing style lend itself to a great pace to keep you interested and she adds a bit of romance between Olive and Will. There’s a little bit of everything to cover a wide continuum of themes; one of which, learning to be okay with yourself regardless of others opinion, is one of the better ones.

Now, while I loved the second half of the book and the premise of it all, I had a hard time getting into it to begin with.

This was basically a teenage retelling of the Lord of the Flies with a bit of a fantastical element. I found it a lot more entertaining than the Lord of the Flies, but that isn't saying much because I felt like I was chewing cardboard while I was reading TLOTF.

It took a bit for me to warm up to some of the characters. There were some like bug that I liked right from he start because I couldn't help myself. But then there were characters like Olive where I didn't really care at first. I did come to like Olive. I think she is an incredibly brave an inspirational main character. I'm glad that she worked through all her issues.

Overall, solid read. I would read it again, it left me feeling content and happy. It was an inspirational story about coming to terms with you demons and being happy with yourself. Good book.

Oooooooooooo I loved this. All of it. Everything. It was so good!

The writing was so easy to read that I flew through this hardly putting it down long enough to pee. The characters, the setting, the conflict, the development, the romance, the cover - EVERYTHING was done so well. It's going straight on my favorites list.

Poor Olive, not only does she hate her name, but she seems to always have a knot in her throat. Ouch. I liked the concept of this book - a Pirate Carnival with a cornmaze where kids disappear, an island of lost teens. It did kinda drag in parts, was a bit repetitious, full of clichés. And I didn't care for the ending because I just don't understand how that could happen. But overall it was a fun read.

"We go out and settle on large boulders in the sun. It beats down on us like a tiny peace of heaven in all this chaos and confusion, orphan stories, and names."

* * * .5
3 . 5 / 5

Confession time: I haven't read The Lord of the Flies, that supposedly is the inspiration behind The Castaways. I tried to once, when I was twelve, and it was incredibly boring so I put it down and went back to reading the Narnia Chronicles. What I can tell you is that The Castaways is firmly a young adult novel, full of action, violence, romance, and female character (which I understand Lord of the Flies doesn't have). It's a fun and quick-paced novel that bumps it up from the average 3 star book, but suffers from an abundance of cliches.

"I used to have a smile. A real smile. All teeth. All cheeks. The kind that makes your eyes go squinty and pinches your nose. But I lost it."

Olive Maxi Gagmuehler is badly bullied, beginning with quite a disgusting opening scene of harassment. Olive certainly earns my sympathy and watching her grow and reflect on herself throughout the book was lovely. At the Castaway Carnaval, Olive runs from her tormentors into the corn maze, one surrounded by legend and rumours of missing children, but when she runs out again - well, this ain't Texas anymore, Dorothy. The island is large and inhabited by two small tribes of children - the Lions and the Panthers - who are at war with each other. It sounds a bit cliche and I suppose the idea behind it is, but I was delighted to find out that there isn't actually much time spent "at war", rather it tries to focus on a community of lost young people and their relationships to each other and themselves.

"I've learned to slay the physical and mental mind blow before it takes me down its hellish spiral. I've never fallen all the way down. But the threat is always one breath away."

Olive has anxiety, mostly manifesting in severe breathlessness and shaking. Personally, as someone who used to have panic attacks (bad heart palpitations and feeling like I was choking), I think this was quite well done, but obviously everyone experiences anxiety in a different way. As Olive grows throughout the novel, her anxiety becomes less debilitating. She becomes more confident in who she is and I related quite a lot to this - going to university and exposing myself to new people and situations did wonders for my anxiety. Like Olive, it's still there and sometimes surfaces, but is almost entirely manageable. So kudos to the author for this.

As regards the rest of the cast, Olive loves her younger brother Lucky, but unfortunately her parents barely feature in the novel at all. The rest of the main cast consists of the lion tribe, a mix of six kids of different ages. I'm fairly sure some of the kids were non-white, but there isn't a whole lot of descriptions going on. My favourite was Bug, a resourceful seven year old girl who takes a liking to Olive (and Olive's matching underwear set), closely followed by Jude, a solitary grumpy older teen who is mourning the loss of his girlfriend, Ana. Then there's Will, the love interest and head of the Lions, the kid who has been on the island the longest.

"I don't hate you," he mumbles. I barely hear it. But I do. Head down, he speaks to the door. "I hate this fucking island. It takes everything I love, chews it up, and shits it back out."

The cast is, on the whole, alright, though I had trouble keeping a few of the characters distinct in my mind. Where the book suffers is its predicability. The two main plot twists were rather obvious - the first in particular I saw coming from quite a while away. But what was interesting was the way in which Olive dealt with the betrayal. Normally authors write their characters into having meltdowns and screaming anger fits when they have hidden paths - instead Fleck wrote Olive as being a mature adult who is capable of having a decent adult conversation! That's quite a rare trait in a YA character, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Then there's Will. He's got the crooked nose and jaunty smile and a ~mysterious~ past that Olive falls for straight away. That's actually fine by me - you spend some time in close quarters with some people and you're probably going to develop a crush. It's just that their relationship develops very fast from crush to love territory, in under a month. I also didn't actually like him all that much either, so that was a bit of a shame - the idea of a sixteen year old dating someone who has lived on an island for fifty years, ageing physically or not, seems a bit weird to me. It's a bit Edward Cullen to my mind, though Will is nowhere near as creepy. The ending is also very predictable, absolutely no surprises there.

The Castaways is a fun, fast-paced novel with a handful of good and well-developed characters. The main character, Olive, is particularly strong and I think the anxiety representation is well done. Just don't expect to be surprised by where the plot goes.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book.

“Castaways” is an incredible YA fantasy that takes place on “The Island.” Think “The Lord of the Flies” or “The Maze Runner,” although this book is a masterpiece in its own right. Olive Maxi Gagmuehler has always hated her name- she believes it is at the center of why she is bullied and represents everything terrible about her life. Olive is horribly bullied by a trio of girls at her school with real violence. One of the first scenes we witness is the trio holding her down on the bathroom floor while shoving a used tampon into her mouth until she vomits.

It is no wonder that Olive runs through the corn maze to escape the trio after they beat her and shave off some of her hair. What she doesn’t expect is that running through the corn maze will land her somewhere completely different from Texas- “The Island.” This is where the real story begins. Olive is found by a group of children, currently engaged in a war with another set of children. All the kids are from different places and times, although a few came through the same corn maze Olive did (albeit at very different times). On The Island, they don’t age- although death is very real.

The group of kids which found Olive consist of the leader, Will, whose bully Dean leads the other group of children, the adorable and young Bug, who always sneaks into Olive’s bed at night, the young Charlie who won’t speak, Tilly, whose care keeps them all well, and Jude and Lucas. Olive and Will instantly have a connection and a sweet young love forms. Will and Dean came through the same corn maze in the 70s, a bully and his victim. Everyone on The Island was running from something when they landed there, but none of them know how to get back. They’ve been engaged in a war for so long, complete with bombs and deaths- it’s pretty intense.

This is a strong, fascinating and fast-paced book that will keep you guessing. I could easily imagine this turning into an amazing series, but this book has a complete story with an ending that doesn’t leave much room for sequels (so if you like complete stand-alones, this one’s for you!). There is quite a bit of violence and some really extreme bullying in the book- it’s pretty intense. The romance was quick, but I liked it/it was believable enough! It’s definitely worth the read though- I was completely captivated by the story and could not put it down; I loved the characters, I loved The Island, and I loved the mystery of it all. This is a beautifully written book, and I really enjoyed it!

Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a free review.

I loved this book. At the start I kind of sighed a bit, thinking it was going to be another Alice in Wonderland type story (which wouldn't have been that bad, I love Alice in Wonderland) but was pleasantly surprised to find a more unique Peter Pan type story. I also really liked the whole bullying theme the story delves into, which is only too relevant these days.

I don't want to give anything more away about the story so I will just say there were some great twists, tears, and a wonderful happy ending. But I want more! A sequel or a spinoff... Maybe a story about Shiloh and Duke?! I can't be the only one who wants to know what happens to them (or the only one who wants to know more about their back story).

Anyway... Great book! I would highly recommend!!

PS- I would like a novella/short story/blog post explaining what the sheep did to make everyone think they're such assholes?!

Wow! I can't even express how epic this book was. I couldn't put it down and read it from cover to cover in 24 hours. The Castaways pulls you in from the moment you open the cover when you realize that the main character, Olive is being bullied at school. Through the rest of the book, all I could think about was how Olive was going to get off the island alive and would William go with her. At the end, all I wanted to do was scream at William "Go with here!." But, alas, he couldn't. At the end, I just wanted to cry, but the author made everything better. I'm not going to give it away, but it has a happy ending. Five stars for Jessika Fleck!

This book was actually pretty cool, if you can push aside the clichéd lines, like how the mc can't decipher a look, and how the main guy has a crooked or once broken nose. There is a trio of mean girls in the beginning that definitely put other bullies to shame. They were rough.

Loved the side characters. Especially Tilly and Bug! The whole island situation is pretty cool. The romance did happen a little fast, but it was still cute. Overall an interesting read!