Read January 2023 Recommended for fans of castaway ★ ★ ★ 1/2 I haven't watched Survivor, which is apparently headed into its 46th season, or since 2000 on the Gregorian calendar. (Clearly, something about the format works for a lot of people). I'm not into mind games, manipulation, or competition, so it mostly fails to hit anything that interests me. However, Stranded was a kindle deal (oh, how those deals get me), had a few 4-star written reviews from my friends, and, most importantly, I was heading off into the 'rural' part of a semi-desert island. This seemed both appropriate and perfect.
Eight people sign up to be contestants on an island survival reality show, four men and four women. Told from the point of view of Maddy, one of the women, it becomes obvious that it didn't go down the way the show's producers hoped. It opens with the future Maddy stumbling onto a beach and asking a woman to call police. Scene ends, and Chapter One starts with the current timeline as the introverted and socially awkward Maddy is interviewing to be a contestant for the show with Sasha. She tries hard to put her best foot forward and leaves a few details out:
"I went to a new doctor for a letter to say I was healthy enough to take part in the show. I was, aside from the therapy I was avoiding and the tablets I had to take, but she didn't have to know about that."
Apparently, according to a podcasts I was just listening to, one of the 'rules' of tv reality shows is that often real people are too boring, so producers go out of their way to pick extreme personalities with unpredictable behavior because those will make for more dynamic viewing. Goodwin has clearly done her research, because among the other contestants for A Last Refuge is Frank, who "appeared to be the kind of middle-class bigot my home village was populated with. I wondered if the producers had picked him for just that reason." There's also Gil, who "spoke loudly, not caring that people nearby were staring. She was also cheerfully ignoring the 'No Smoking' sign in the shelter." And don't forget Maxine, who "reminded me instantly of my mom" and is here to demonstrate the Girl Guides are still relevant.
These very different personalities are tossed together on an island in Scotland with only a few personal supplies and their first starter survival kit and they'll be staying 11 months. It's a nice change on the tropical island premise, with the pressure of winter weather adding an element of stress. There's no voting off or physical competition, only surviving through the winter.
The remainder of the book stays in the main timeline, but it will go back to clips of the interview with Sasha, as well as forward in time, presumably to events that happened after Maddy reached land, asking for police. It is an intriguing format that helps add tension to the story as well fill in some information about Maddy in a more organic, dialogue-focused fashion.
Something about it gave me a Lord of the Flies vibe, and I don't know if it was a review, blurb, or foreshadowing by Goodwin, so I'm hesitant to say more. I thought it did a solid job with psychological suspense, although a couple of times I felt the build-up was a little forced with its foreshadowing and its personality changes. But it is probably because I haven't internalized the social rules for Survivor the way the rest of the tv-watching populace has.
"The things that started happening to us, after Christmas... I thought it was all just random tragedy; accidents, mistakes. If I'd known then that there was some reason to it, some intent, I don't know if I could have held on like I did."
The ending was quite unexpected. Overall, a lot of fun. Three and a half crisp packets, rounding up.
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