Adrift by Paul Griffin

Pages: 228
Publish date: July 31st 2015
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 9781925240160
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

Adrift:

I received a copy of Adrift by Paul Griffin from Text Publishing in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced by thoughts about the book.

I liked Adrift by Paul Griffin, but I didn’t love it. I really enjoyed the plot and most of the characters, but I felt that everything went too fast.

Adrift follows Matt and his best friend John on a summer journey that isn’t that they were expecting. I still don’t know if I like Matt, though the book was told from his perspective, I felt that he was really disconnected and at times I couldn’t trust him. He is sort of the omniscient narrator. Matt is the nice guy, but he is also quite boring and I think that is one of the reasons why I didn’t love the book.

John on the other hand as very intriguing and I wanted to know more about him; but he hid himself a great deal and although Matt is his best friend he doesn’t really know him well in a sense and just sees what John puts up. I wanted to hug John, he has been through quite a lot and from the start of the book; I got the idea that he is the suffer in silence kind of guy and Matt just doesn’t see this. As the book goes on Matt starts distancing himself from John and it broke my heart for John because he needs someone.

The other characters are Driana, JoJo and Stef and you know what? I didn’t really care about them. I know that this sounds bad, but I felt that Matt had no emotional connection with them which is ironic for people who have read the book. Their personalities just didn’t shine.

I also felt that they were, dare I say it; stupid. Just why, oh why would you take a boat out without checking how much fuel it has or checking if it works. At this point, no one was in trouble, but four of you go and jump in without thinking about it.

Other than that little stuff that I had everything else was quite realistic and had me turning page after page. Once they were out in the open sea, everything just seemed so much more real. I was intrigued at how the characters interacted with each other, I really thought that this was done really well. I also like how they all felt differently about what was happening and how being stranded out at sea affecting them.

I was left on my seat for most of the book, not knowing what was going to happen, asking all these questions. It was thrilling at times.

The medical and psychological aspects of Adrift was done brilliantly. It was gross, interesting and so intense. The way that the injuries were described were so disgusting, but done in a way that seemed so real. Also that fact that Matt is studying things to do with medical made it interesting; seeing him trying to figure out what to do.

I didn’t really like the writing style of Paul Griffin in Adrift. There are a lot of short sentences that ‘cut in’ of what was being said and I felt that the sentences were uncompleted. It was sentence after sentence, it didn’t flow nicely.

I was also disappointed in the ending. Yes it was realistic, but it was also a letdown. Everything was different from before; obviously, but I thought from those who survived that they would be brought closer together.

Overall, I liked Adrift, it was a fast paced, emotional thrilling read that kept me on edge.