Reckless Girls is an apt title for this one. There are several reckless girls- and some guys as well- but the protagonist is Lux, a young woman in Hawaii slaving away to support her sailing enthusiast boyfriend. They met in California and relocated to Hawaii to pursue his dream of sailing but mostly they live hand to mouth and she works at a resort dealing with moneyed tourists. She has loss in her life and you can watch her making bad decisions- she's looking for an escape, and like many people she sometimes gravitates towards the wrong people- and situations- to cope.
She thinks maybe it's time for them, though, when two apparently rich tourists hire her boyfriend Nico to take them to an isolated island in the Pacific. Big money. Nico asks Lux to come along and soon they are in a tropical paradise. It's just them for a couple weeks on an island in the middle of nowhere. Well, maybe not just them. When they arrive they discover a catamaran there and soon make the acquaintance of a rich couple. They get along great, though, and it's time to party- until other things happen, someone else shows up, and secrets are revealed.
The island is a big element of the tale, with its dark secrets and almost uninhabitable setting. Even the fish are poisonous. Paradise and danger go hand in hand here. And it appears that Amma and Brittany all have their own secrets. The story is told in the present along with flashbacks revealing what really happened with several characters. To be honest, some of this seemed a bit farfetched.
I liked this book a lot, but I've seen raves for it and I didn't love it that much. It's very possible I let my expectations get ahead of me. I also thought the sailing was a little sketchy- which is not a big deal since this story is less about the sailing and more about what happens when people are isolated, put under pressure, and find out they don't know someone nearly as well as they think. I liked Lux, not really anyone else, although some of the reveals were not shocking. I thought also that a lot of the reveals came late enough that it felt like not a lot happened for stretches.
Having said that, this was a readable thriller and kept the pages turning. I liked the exploration of what people will do to escape their situation, and what fractured family ties can do to people, but the ending- really? It went somewhere I had a hard time following. I just couldn't quite make that leap. Still, it's fun and who doesn't love a creepy island?
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