The Island-Michael Stark

I was perusing the free books available on Nook and Kindle last week and I came across Micael Stark's The Island. It was broken down into 5 parts, with the first 3 being free and the last 2 installments only being 99 cents. The description grabbed my interest enough to read for free and I figured that at less than 2 bucks, it was worth the investment to finish even if it sucked in a most royal fashion.

That being said, I actually liked the story. It got a bit slow and redundant at times, but I kept on reading. I'm just having a bit of problem with my review. I don't know how to review it without being spoilerish. I could just give a synopsis, but that's not reviewing, that's more like screening(and cheating). So, I guess I'll say what I can, without giving too much away, but start with.....

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT....

The island starts off with William telling about how he is leaving the world behind to die in peace. He's not harboring some death wish or anything, he knows all is lost and he'd rather spend his last days, as well as that of humanity, doing something he wants to do. There's a viral outbreak spreading through Mexico and William can read the signs and he knows that all is not as it seems. He doesn't believe the media and the government when they assure everyone that all is ok and there's no need to worry. He sees this as an apocalyptic scourge about to wipe out most of humanity. He also knows that with his own chidhood health issues that he has no hopes of being one of the few that survive. So he pretty much empties his life, cuts ties and heads out to this island off the Caronlina coast, not to run away so he can live, but so he can die as he wants.

 Stark does a good job of fooling you into thinking that this is another zombapocalypse story. But as the story goes on, you find out that there is much more going on than some random case of 28 days later. I really like the development of characters and the back story he built, although he does get a bit sluggish and repetitive at times. He also does a good job of tossing in some gore and creepy. He leaves you hanging somewhat at the end, but then, that's what a writer should do when he wants you to read the next installment. Another thing I really liked was the way that I was able to "see" everything. He wrote the story to where it was very easy to visualize the places and characters. Of course it helps that he used some actual places to reinforce the scenic imagery and any southerner could picture the exact people he was writing about. Overall, I was pleased with the time I put into reading this and will defintely read The Rock when it comes out in early 2013.

 I give it a B-.