As the family’s Designated Reader, I usually make a note of who the book is destined for – The Best Niece in Australia gets the quality YA, my brother gets most Fantasy, and anything involving violent death and appropriate comeuppance has Mum and Nan written all over it.
Everyone in Five Survive is off to Spring Break – though they’re high school students, this falls somewhere between YA and New Adult. Red and Maya, best friends forever, Maya’s older brother and his girlfriend, their long term school mate Simon, and his mate Arthur are all taking an RV to Florida. This unconventional mode of travel is so that Red can attend – she’s not currently in a position to buy airline tickets, and Simon’s Uncle sourced the RV free of charge.
On their first night, they take a wrong turn, GPS fails, and they end up detained by a sniper, who demands a secret from one of the six.
Whilst I found this pretty easy to work out early on, the overall suspense of the story works (as does the pressure cooker environment’s impact on the personalities of the protagonists). The ultimate resolution feels earned, and satisfying. I feel like this is destined to end up a direct-to-Netflix movie at some point, and honestly? I’ll watch it.
