Island (1995)

My first ever book by this author, and it definately won't be my last.

The plot is very simple, 8 people decide to go on a boat cruise to celebrate a wedding anniversary. The group are made up of couples (Andrew & Billie - parents of the 3 girls, Connie and Rupert, Keith & Kimberley & Wesley & Thelma).

The boat blows up with Wesley aboard whilst the others are enjoying a picnic on a secluded island. Trapped on the island they decide to make the best of a bad situation, that is until they start getting killed one by one.

The story is told by Rupert through his Journal which he kept at the time. He is Connies boyfriend, 18 years old and hormones raging.

This book has so many different emotions running through it, at times I would be laughing out loud, at others grimacing at torture scenes. Possibly not one for the faint hearted. A bit like Stephen King but more rape, blood and guts. At just over 500 pages I was suprised how quickly I got through it. A real page turner. 5 stars well deserved. ( )

Richard Laymon’s books are in a class by themselves. Horrifying, shocking, Creepy, and demented which exactly what I love abut Laymon.
Eight people left stranded on a seemingly deserted island are hunted by a crazed murderer. The narrator of the book a young man (Rupert Conway) in his late teens who seems to have sexual fantasies on his mind no matter the circumstance. The ending to a book the book will have you shouting "No way!" ( )

“If you’ve missed Richard Laymon, you’ve missed a treat” – Stephen King

Well my guess is;

Stephen hasn’t read a Laymon book
Stephen got paid shitloads to say this (which is on the front of most of his books, so was it by book or an all-encompassing?)
Stephen mistook Laymon for someone else
Stephen’s a crackpot
Now I use the numbered ‘options’ as a parody to how this book is written, it pops up a lot, but you know what, they aren’t the only annoying thing in this book.



You can't tell a book by it's cover...
In what has got to be the worst book I believe I have ever read, and I’ve read a lot, Island would be the literary version to the multi-Raspberry movie winner, Battlefield Earth. I have to admit, I have never seen Battlefield Earth but I will take their word for it, as you should mine. What makes it embarrassing is that I couldn’t put it down, like a really bad movie where you can;t take your eyes off as you just have to see the ending, this applied here.

And like an old man watching TV, I found myself yelling (inside my head) at the book, it’s characters, and the plot almost all the way through…I wanted to slap the 18-year-old packet of testosterone about a bit and tell him to start acting like a man and stop getting hard-ons while people were being slashed and slayed around him. I also wanted to put my foot where the sun don’t shine in the bastard who was the evil influence in this – note, next time you wish to capture a group of people, kill off the men and keep the women for sex slaves, when you scope out the place the week before, bring a fucking gun! Trying to do all this with a couple of kitchen knives and an axe seems amateurish (much like the writing). And 14-year-olds being raped…c’mon mate, does your missus know what you do in your office late at night when you barricade the door telling her you’re doing important work? Suddenly American Psycho seemed to have an air of normality compared to your deviant mind…and this scathing remark form a self-confessed deviant!

AAARGH! YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND JUST HOW BAD THIS WAS!

Which is also why I recommend you read it…if you read this, anything else will be great, even your bank statement and the flyers in your mailbox.

And for those who read my previous reviews on Laymon’s books (four to date), I have mentioned he seems to have this deep-seated fascination with sex, and not just sex, sometimes a little bit weird sex. Well this book blows them all right out of the water and onto the beach. The guy’s fucked in the head.

Now while in my last one I thanked Tash for giving me a few of her books to read, now I’m not so sure. I have one more to read…let me debate whether I want to read this one, or stick toothpicks under my foreskin while eating a selection of raw giblets. Now where did I put those toothpicks? ( )

This was a great Psych-Thriller. The whole time you wonder what will happen next. Just when you think I can't get anymore messed up the author pulls out something that makes you cringe away.
The whole book starts with a Family getting stranded on a tropical island. Starting with the boat exploding and progressing to people dieing.
Oh! And the end, my god the end is fabulous. Just read it because I can't say any more with out giving everything away. ( )

Laymon is finally growing on me, and I actually appreciate his characters more now, but that by no means is me giving him a free pass on characterization. For instance, our narrator, the pathetic and Laymon-esque typical male character, obsesses over the women he's with and their features, rather than, say, thinking rationally and trying to figure out ways to kill the one who's trying to kill him. I despise narrators that are so full of themselves, especially when they have done absolutely nothing to earn such an ego. He's got his moments, though, but they are few and far between.

Overall, I couldn't put the book down and it was action from the very beginning. Your typical Laymon themes are in here, and they are more or less good. Island is probably on my top five Laymon books, but it's nothing spectacular. ( )