REVIEW - THE VANISHING PLACE BY THERESA EMMINIZER

Title: The Vanishing Place

Author: Theresa Emminizer

Genre: Teens, YA, Hi Lo, Prose

Publisher: West 44

Release Date: 1st April 2020

BLURB from Goodreads
When Brooke, Eva, Nate, and Jay take a nighttime sail off the Florida coast, they never imagine that their lives are about to change forever. Shipwrecked by a storm at sea, the teenagers become castaways on an island that seems designed to test their very natures. Faced with loss, trauma, and the harsh reality of day-to-day survival, will they find the strength to confront their inner demons and escape the Vanishing Place? Or are mysterious forces at work to keep them stranded for all time?

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REVIEW

It was the blurb rather than the cover that attracted me most to this book. The way the blurb hints that there is something “other” that keeps the teenaged characters stranded on an island when they are shipwrecked made me want to learn more.

The book begins with two teenage girls listening to the parents of Brooke getting drunk. Brooke has talked her friend Eva into sneaking out to see the two boys they met earlier who have promised to take them out in a boat. Brooke is the skinny, beautiful, confident and more talkative of the girls with Eva, the curvy, less confident one dragged along for the adventure. The two teens make their way to meet Nate whose fathers boat they are going out on and his friend Jay. Unfortunately, none of the teens are used to drinking much alcohol so quickly become intoxicated. The weather turns bad, the sea becomes rough and the boat is wrecked with the four teens finding themselves washed up in the shallow water next to an island none of them recognise.

The book is told from three points of view starting with Eva, who is thinking about the Three rules of survival, A person can survive: 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. Then Eva looks around and see’s that only three of them have survived Brooke’s body is laying broken over the remainder of the boat.

We learn more about the three different characters by how they handle being stranded on the island. Nate is an organiser, a checker, and a planner. He counts the hours, days, weeks they are stranded. Every morning he checks on and counts the dwindling supplies/equipment they have.

Jay’s initial reaction is to get angry with Nate, demanding to know where they are, why Nate got so drunk he didn’t realise they were drifting off course. Yet Jay seems to accept the situation they are in much quicker than the other two. Jay seems quite quickly and easily resigned to living the rest of his days on the Island. He doesn’t believe they will be rescued, when an “escape” attempt ends up in near death and them back on the Island he seems to think its “fate” that they are in a “Vanishing Place”.

I did enjoy reading the book, learning about the different characters and personalities. It was a shame Brooke was “killed off” it would have been interesting to see what she would have brought to the group dynamic.

I’m not so sure about the three teens handled the death and dealing with Brooke’s body….should they have tried burying her, …should they have kept the body somewhere on the island for if/when they were rescued….I’m not so sure I would have immediately thought of burning a best friends body!

It’s quite strange that the two perhaps perceived as quieter characters are the ones that become more confident in their own abilities and take charge of the situation they are in, making the best of it. For Jay life on the Island is an improvement on his life at home, so he doesn’t feel the need to try get back everything he had before he was shipwrecked. Whereas the more confident Nate just keeps trying to find ways to escape the island to get back to his life as the popular guy at school and the company of others, back to civilisation. Eva ends up being happy with either eventuality as long as she isn’t alone, she is happy to make the best of a bad situation.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing reading this book were that this book was yet another great short read, that is classified as Hi-Lo and prose/poetry which not so long ago would have been a genre I would have just dismissed and not even thought of reading.

To sum up The Vanishing Place was an interesting, different kind of read with an eerie quality to it. The book is initially based on four characters but is told through the points of view of three of the characters. Great short read, perfect bit of escapism to read with a cuppa.