Survive

Review Time! Survive by Alex Morel is a 2012 YA Debut that was recently published by Hardie Grant Egmont back in July! When I first heard about Survive, I was so excited because I love survival based novels and this one sounded absolutely amazing! You can purchase a copy of this book from Fishpond | The Nile | Booktopia | Dymocks. Thanks to Hardie Grant Egmont for the review copy!

(Goodreads) Jane is running away from everything. From the facility she’s been living in, from her pain, from her guilt, from life. She boards a plane to Montclair, New Jersey, though her destination isn’t important – she doesn’t plan to be alive when the plane lands.

Jane has devised the perfect suicide. She’ll fall asleep on the plane and never wake up. But as she’s reaching for her pills in the tiny bathroom, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black.

Jane wakes amid the charred wreckage of a plane crash on a snowy mountaintop, and discovers just one other survivor – a boy named Paul. Lost in a perilous, icy landscape, with little food and water, their chance of survival seems small. But as the pair unite against the vast wilderness, Jane discovers a reason to fight for her life.

The Short Story? - An intriguing premise of a novel brought to life by fantastic characters and a unique narrative voice. Survive was everything I thought it was going to be from the edgy and exciting plot to the beautifully flawed characters and their heart-warming romance. A novel about love, loss, grief, sacrifice and more than anything - fighting to survive and realising the importance of living. Morel's YA debut is a beautiful contemporary work of fiction thats a journey for both survival and self discovery.

The Long Story? - I moved into this novel without expecting it to have so much depth. I was expecting Survive to be more of an adventure read but surprisingly this was very much of a dark contemporary. The novel has a lot of the characteristics and representation that frequent the contemporary genre, it has the whole "discovering yourself and moving on" element but Morel has chosen a more dramatic setting and that was something that I really enjoyed. The survival element really gave the novel a nice touch, I love action and suspense and this "plane crashed and we're all alone on a mountain" premise really pulled me in. I also loved the romance between Jane and Paul and the ending was so bittersweet. I cried and that's not something I do often. If you're looking for an action-packed contemporary that will make you cry, Survive is a safe bet!

The characterisation was really well done. I loved the character development in Jane, it was blatantly obvious that this journey for survival not only challenged Jane physically but also mentally. Jane started out as a very depressed teenager who was suicidal and she was struggling with her grief over her father's death but this plane crash has really done a 180 on her and as she struggles to survive, she realises that she doesn't want to die. I love how Jane discovers self-worth and how towards the end of the book, she really reinvents herself into the girl she wants to be. Paul was also a very important part of the novel. He was the turning point for everything, without him, Jane wouldn't have found the determination to live and their romance was so so so cute. Jane and Paul are really the only characters we meet in the novel and together they made the characterisation quite spectacular.

In a nutshell, Survive is a novel I would highly recommend readers of all genres because it crosses over a lot in the YA market. Beautifully written with a rich narrative voice, excellent characterisation and a original and intriguing plot, Survive definitely lived up to my expectations. Morel has truly done a brilliant job with her YA debut. If you're looking for something different or something edgy, make sure you check out Survive because it's not one to be missed!

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Badass Bookie xx