Six friends go on a road trip over spring break and find themselves stuck in an RV in the middle of nowhere.
In the book “Five Survive” by Holly Jackson, Red, Maddy, Oliver, Simon, Reyna and Arthur are on their way to the Gulf Shores when their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. After they find there is no cell service and no one to help, they realize that the tire was shot out and it wasn’t an accident that they were stuck. They realize they are being targeted by a sniper who wants a big secret kept by one of the friends exposed. The sniper was threatening them and wasn’t afraid to kill to get the secret out. The friends had to figure out who was keeping it, which forced many secrets into light.
In the story, there are lots of twists and turns, some of which were being strung out throughout the whole story and some that came out of nowhere. The twists have you hooked and force you to keep reading. A lot of the twists came from when they were sharing their secrets to figure out which one the sniper was looking for. There were lots of astonishing shocks that not one reader saw coming. This causes a lot of suspense and provokes the reader to start theorizing about the ending. It makes for a great book that you can never put down.
Most of the characters were built extremely well, feeling very human and relatable. Red, the protagonist, was specifically a very relatable character and had lots of depth. However, the only flaw in the character development was that it could’ve gone farther. The book ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger which stunted lots of character development for everyone. Simon was an odd character who had confusing development throughout the story. He wasn’t specifically categorized as a protagonist or antagonist and he had some unrealistic things about him. It would’ve been nice to see more of him, especially towards the end.
The book “Five Survive” is a consuming and enigmatic book. It is a ⅘ stars and great for anyone who loves suspense and thrillers to read.
