I wanted to really like this book. I got sucked in with the beautiful cover art and the LGBTQ+ theme. I thought it’d be a perfect book to kick of Pride month. Unfortunately, that is where the pros end for me.

I could not get into this book. The biggest con for me was that there are 9 different POVs and I quite frankly didn’t like any of the characters. The POV would change frequently and without warning, I had a hard time following who was speaking.

I give this book ⭐️⭐️.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC copy of Island time in exchange for my honest opnion.

First, I adore Georgia Clark.
There was so much going on in this book when all these characters are stuck on an island for six weeks!
So much family drama! And while it all gets resolved by the end of the book, I did not see those solutions being taken so I was surprised. Also, sometimes I liked the characters and sometimes I didn't. I think that shows an incredible depth of character development. (Light spoiler) Although, I still think Liss deserves better than Amelia...
I hope there is a sequel in the future just to see where all the different characters end up, I feel like they were all just starting new growth by the end of the book. Although my favorite character was probably Glen, ha!
Maybe don't read if you are stuck on an island...

The first half of this book was a slow burn. There was so many times I wanted to give up, but I pushed through the first half and it did get better. There were quite a few characters with a lot of unnecessary information about each character that took up a lot of the first half. The second half become more interesting and gives you those happy island vibes. Reading the authors notes gave me more of an appreciation for this book due to her writing Island Time while she was stuck in New York by herself during covid. She wishes she could of been home with her family which lives on an island like mun’dai. Thank you NetGalley and Georgia Clark for the advanced copy of Island Time, this book gave me a whole new appreciation for family during hard times.

Books about complex family dynamics featuring an ensemble cast tend to either land perfectly for me or make me want to rip my hair out. It all depends on the individual characters and, unfortunately, I mostly was in a continual state of annoyance with the ones in this book. It gets 3 stars due to being well-written and because the setting was amazing.

The plot revolves around the Kelly family (parents and two daughters) and the Lee family (parents and one daughter) taking a weekend vacation on an isolated Australian island. Matty Kelly and Parker Lee are married and the trip is supposed to help the two families grow closer. There is also the island caretaker (Liss) and an aboriginal man (Jarrah) who helps manage the island. A nearby volcano erupts unexpectedly and what was supposed to be a weekend getaway becomes a 6-week stay. As you can imagine, THINGS HAPPEN.

I liked about 50% of the 9 characters. I enjoyed the character growth of Glen Kelly and Ludmila Lee and the friendship between Randall Lee and Glen. I spent 99% of the book annoyed with Amelia Kelly, Matty Kelly, and Jules Kelly and was ambivalent towards Parker Lee and Liss. Jarrah felt a little too much like a “magical negro” thrown in by the author as a token aboriginal filled with wisdom. He never became a complete character in his own right except in relation to how the other characters responded to him. His attraction to Jules was completely baffling to me as was Liss’s attraction to Amelia who was supposed to be in her 30s but acted like someone in their early 20s. I could honestly write a thesis on my problems with Amelia.

The island setting was great. I learned a lot about a part of the world I knew very little about (thank you, Jarrah, for that). This book is billed as a romance which is misleading as, in my opinion, any romantic plots were purely secondary to the overall theme of family dynamics. I loved that the author wove two different LGBTQ+ relationships into this story and I think there are many people who will really enjoy this book but I had a tough time with the characters and, unfortunately, this is a character-driven novel.

The second book for this post is Island Time by Georgia Clark. This book is a new sub-genre for me. It is an LGBTQ+ romance. In the book, the Kelly family, who are from Australia, and the Lee family from the US are on a tropical island off the coast of Queensland together. Why are they together? Matty Kelly met Parker Lee in New York City. They fell in love and got married. While the parents are not so crazy about each other, they both love their daughters. Amelia Kelly is also with her family on the trip. As the story opens, she is waiting for her boyfriend to come to the island to join the family and, she hopes, announce his intention to marry her. While the island can accommodate more people, the Kellys and the Lees are the only guests at this time. Liss, is the staff person on the island, there to help if anything is needed and to give information about the island.

This trip to the island is a prequel to Matty and Parker moving to Sydney. Matty is scheduled to start her route to getting pregnant when they get to Sydney. Jules Kelly, Matty and Amelia’s Mom, is in support of this and has made most of the arrangements. Shortly before the trip, Jules announced to her husband that their marriage was over but that they would not tell the girls until they were all home from the island. Gary is not sure he agrees with this idea. He thinks it would be better to tell the girls the truth right away, but Jules has a more dominant personality and has always been the decision-maker. The Lees are not exactly the “roughing it” kind but they are doing this for their daughter.

Then a nearby volcano erupts and the families and the two island employees are stranded on the island for six weeks, the characters havea chance to find out more about themselves and each other. Right after the eruption, another staff person is on the island, his name is Jarrah and he is a member of the Aboriginal tribe that owns the island.

Alright, I think you need to suspend belief on a few points. First of all, they all seem to have phone and internet service the entire time. I found this hard to believe. Also, there was electricity most of the time. Since our electricity can go out in a big storm and need the power company to come out and fix it, I find it hard to believe that this remote island had power.

Getting past that, the time on the island gives the characters time to learn more about each other and themselves. Yes, there are TWO love stories that start on the island. One that shows some potential and the other hits a setback, but it could continue.

The book was okay. It held my attention and moves along fairly well. But it is a good summer beach read. It just isn’t boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy and girl kiss and makeup. It does show that all couples have issues and can resolve them or not.

So much potential in this one. But there was no spark and right away it was lacking something. Also, very early on the characters were extremely confusing. Incredible cover and great plot idea though. Would’ve loved a better execution.

Georgia Clark is the queen of ensemble romances! I was absolutely smitten by the magic and joy and authenticity of this delightful story about the Kelly and Lee families. What starts as a long weekend in a secluded tropical paradise ends up being a 6 week stay after a nearby volcanic eruption strands them. Forced to spend time together and pool their resources, each member of these families is undergoing their own personal transformations as well. I loved the explorations into themes of marriage, career, partnership, romance, starting over, and parenthood. As much as this was a romance, this story also beautifully empathized that your relationship with yourself is perhaps the most important of all and that it’s never too late to live the life you want to live. I was charmed and frustrated by these characters and ultimately left feeling hopeful with a smile on my face by their resilience. The vivid descriptions of the island and its equally stunning and powerful nature also captivated me and made the perfect backdrop for this story.

Thank you so much to @atriabooks + @netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

Island Time is a classic. I feel like in 20 years English majors will be writing papers on this book. The language is evocative, the characters sparkling, the whole book is absolutely dazzling. No matter your personality, age, or gender, there is something in this story, in these characters that will speak to you. The whole book feels deeply rich and indulgent, like picking up your favorite classic and discovering why you love it all over again.

I don’t know where to start with this book. I had high hopes for this book but it really fell flat for me. The cover makes it seem like it’s a romance novel, but it really isn’t. I wouldn’t even completely consider it family drama. Each character has their own issues that they work with either with a partner or friend or on their own. Most of the characters are extremely unlikeable, except for a few. One of the redeeming qualities of this book is the growth of Glen Kelly. However both of the Kelly daughters are a huge pass for me. I think my least favorite characters are Matty, Amelia, and Jules Kelly.

A lot of this book is slow and drags, especially when everyone deals with their problems behind closed doors and there’s no communication to solve said problems. This book could have been much shorter.

What I did like was the queer representation in this book. However, Amelia has a relationship in this book where they say I love you around 10 days of being other and then she asks Liss to marry her a few days later which is incredibly fast. Thankfully Liss realizes it’s super fast so they decided to just move in together instead.

Unfortunately this is a book that was just hard to finish for me because I just stopped reading it so many times and ended up skimming a lot of the second half. There were scenes were I slowed down to really read them but the rest I was just getting the general gist of it all.

Hmmmmm...I think I'm let down!

This had all the makings of a summer smash: the cover is gorgeous, the synopsis sounds fun, the setting sounded incredible and this author has past winners.

However - one too many POVs, overly descriptive text - it all just made me feel so bored. Unfortunately this one fell very flat for me.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, it felt like a perfect fit for summer. But I have to say I was left disappointed. The writing style is not for me. Not everything needs an in-depth description. There was also plenty of run on sentences. There were too many POVs; this is marketed as a romance so I expect maybe 2 POVs but I didn’t need POVs from the whole family. Because I couldn’t connect with the writing, I couldn’t connect with the characters either. This book just fell flat for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

BOOK REVIEW

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Island Time by Georgia Clark

This book publishes on June 14th and I would definitely recommend reading it if you haven’t already!

Basically a family takes a vacation on an island in Australia and because of a volcano that erupted while they were there, now they are stranded for 6 weeks 😳 Even though this is a romance novel, I absolutely loved how Georgia Clark included backstory and point of view for all of the family members stranded. I didn’t feel like this was a story about just the main character but instead about the whole family. Definitely unique and engaging!

I wasn’t particularly a fan of the main characters personality. She was very much a pushover, unconfident in her self worth, and jumped WAY too fast into relationships. I realize that people are like that and it just made this story more realistic and unique, but I caught myself rolling my eyes multiple times.

However, definitely a cute love story and put me in the summer/island vibes 🌴

Don’t let that pretty cover fool you…
I was happy to be approved for an ARC of this book as this is an LGBTQIA+ friendly book and I thought one of the many great ways I can celebrate Pride Month would be to read an LGBTQIA+ book. I guess I missed the mark on this choice! 😩

Pros: LGBTQIA+ friendly and history of Aboriginal Australians. That’s it. The star and a half I have given this review go towards those two things and those two things alone.

My issues with this book were numerous, but I’ll list my three biggest peeves.

Cons: The ‘humor’ was awful. There’s a line “as gullible as a virgin in a f**k truck.”
Is that a rape joke???? That sounds like a rape joke to me…Not funny. At all.
The mom in the story fantasizes about killing her husband…wait, I AM reading a romantic comedy, right? Now she’s fantasizing about eating him?? Okay, I AM reading a romantic comedy, right?!?! Another example is the sister using the term “The Help” in a derogatory manner, and no one mentions to her that it’s in bad taste to use that terminology. What message does that send? Oh, and fart jokes aplenty. This humor may be for someone but it definitely isn’t for me! 👎🏻

There aren’t really any antagonists in this story which is shocking considering almost every character in this book were terrible people. I thought the sisters who are supposed to be early 30’s acted like downright children. They were such entitled brats and it didn’t make sense to me that either of these women are supposed to be over the age of 16.

There were nine POVs. NINE! They changed so frequently and without warning. Definitely not the seamless POV transition everyone hopes for. There were over 70 chapters and a lot of them were very long and a lot of side stories could have been chopped to make the story shorter. I just felt like it dragged on constantly.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.

1.5 ⭐️ rounding down. Some reviewers really enjoyed this book so maybe I’m just the outlier here so feel free to check it out for yourself!

3.5 Stars. I loved The Bucket List, so I was excited for another book by Georgia. I also usually love a book with an ensemble cast and multiple pov's, but this book fell a bit flat for me. The scenery was truly gorgeous and I loved the historical aspect about an area of Australia I knew nothing about. However, I just did not really love any of the characters all that much, I don't know why exactly, but no one felt all that relatable to me and I never felt invested. Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for the ARC.

A married couple and their families are at the center of this romance when a natural disaster strikes and leaves them stranded while on vacation on an island. How would you like to be stranded with your extended family, secrets out and privacy gone?

I loved Georgia Clark's previous book, It Had to Be You, so I was expecting a similar vibe from this one. I was totally wrong. Although this is lighter in tone and has many perspectives like her previous book, this one has a somewhat silly and has a less believable premise and LOTS of sex. This is definitely a romance and not just a family drama. I liked the couples and found their problems were real and interesting but there were too many characters and problems. I had a little trouble being as interested in all of them. This is a female heavy book, and the men were almost completely just there for the women to act around.

This would be fun for a vacation read but maybe not for more.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

I DNF’d this book after 15%. It was so unbelievably painful to read even that much. The author uses so many adjectives that it reads like a third grader wrote it. There just doesn’t need to be 16 per sentence. Further, the point of view switches between so many characters you cannot get a vibe with any of them. All of them appear to be unhappy and boring, and coupled with the constant switching and aggressive adjective use, I just don’t want to waste my time further.

This took me exactly a month to read. I struggled really hard getting through this book. I feel like it went on forever for no reason. I was very intrigued to begin with because I was not expecting the direction that the book goes in the beginning. It just took forever to get anywhere in this book because of the multiple points of view. I think they’re being so many multiple points of view was very intriguing and a cool concept. But I don’t think we needed that many. There was so many storylines that just didn’t need to be there. Some characters I loved, and some characters I really hated. I would’ve just been happy with a book about Amelia and Liss! I loved their story!

The book was still entertaining and made me laugh a bunch of times! I also wish I had an audiobook of this book so that I could hear all the different accents and really understand how they would be spoken with accents instead of just reading in my head 😂

Overall I think it would make a good summer read! It’s a pretty cool concept and I haven’t read anything like it before!

I was originally drawn into this book by the cover, but I’m not sure the cheery cover fully matched the story. It’s not quite a family drama, but it’s a family with a lot of drama, quirks, and self-discovery. This was the first of Clark’s books for me, and it was also a slow read for me. I enjoyed the setting, and I found myself wanting to know more about many of the characters, but I was able to put this one down and pick it up much later pretty easily. There were so many characters and they all had important and complicated backstories, so I don’t feel like we truly got to know any of them as well as I would have liked. However, the book already felt pretty long, so I’m not sure she could have provided more details on the characters. Without giving anything away, I think it was important to get to know all the characters and how they connect instead of blending some into the background. However, the number of characters meant that the reader doesn’t truly get to know them deeply.

The Kellys family and the Lee family go to a tropical island off the coast of Australia. The only thing that brings these two families together is that their daughters are married. What should have been a long weekend away turned into a six-week-long adventure. On the first night, a volcano offshore erupts causing damage to the area as well as a small tsunami. Due to damage, they were unable to leave the island.

Throughout the book you watch each character evolve and become their true selves. You will get very invested in each character. You will find yourself rooting for them and feeling so great to watch them grow.

As the end grew near and their time on the island was coming to a close I was getting nervous to see how some loose ends would tie together. I was really happy with the outcome but I also wish we could continue to follow these characters after their time on the island. I would love to see how their lives have unfolded.

This is another great summer read!

A big thank you to netgalley & Atria Books for an eARC!

𝕀𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖 𝕓𝕪 𝔾𝕖𝕠𝕣𝕘𝕖 ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝕣𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨🎧

✦ ✧ ✦ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✦ ✧ ✦

ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨

✨I firstly want to thank Netgalley, Atria Books and Georgia Clark for this arc of Island Time. I think this is a really good romance for the summer. The beginning was a bit slow but afterwards it got better. It took a long time for me to finish which can be because of my not finished reading slump. Authors note made me like the book much much more.

✧ ✦ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✦ ✧ ✦