Eight hours.
Six friends.
One sniper . . .
Red, who is eighteen, is traveling by RV with her buddies to the beach for spring break. Despite the long travel, everyone is in a good mood. Up until the RV breaks down in a remote area. There is no one nearby to assist, and there is no mobile phone reception. And the friends realize this is no accident as one by one the wheels come off. A sniper is observing them from the shadows, and he is certain of their identities. The sniper is willing to murder for a secret that one of the group members possesses.
The group plays a game of cat and mouse to figure out who is the target and to get help as quickly as possible. In the small, claustrophobic RV, hidden secrets are forced to surface, and tensions within the group will explode. Some people won’t make it through the night.
Everything in this book suggests that the author enjoys taking a group of helpless imaginary individuals and putting them in horrible, dangerous circumstances. The outcome is one of the most intense books you have ever read, with a high-stakes plot interspersed with eerie moments, extreme claustrophobia and anxiety, and the revelation of numerous unwanted truths.
Some of the plot’s events are distressing, especially a pretty graphic sequence that occurs halfway through, and the characters are in such a state of turmoil and worry that it’s almost enough to make you want to take a nap. Still, it comes out as a fantastic novel, mostly because of the way the twists are disclosed and the way it immerses the reader in the atmosphere of a really scary idea.
We quickly find out that one of the characters has a long-kept secret that they are not sharing with anyone. Naturally, though, a number of them turn out to be hiding something, leaving you to wonder, and there’s still the unanswered question of whether one of them is collaborating with the sniper. Looking back, you find that the main twist is hinted at in a few subtle ways and that a lot of groundwork has been done. Then all of that backstory fits together neatly and impressively when the whole image becomes clear.
Additional facts about the Five Survive Book
Reading age: 14 – 17 years
Grade level: 9 – 12
Print length: 400 pages
Language: English
Publication Date: November 29, 2022
