Sharks and Boys by Kristen Tracey

When 15-year-old Enid Calhoun follows her boyfriend Wick to Maryland for a party, fearful that he might be intending to cheat on her, she finds herself sneaking on board a houseboat where Wick and his friends plan to have a wild night. But before the boys discover their stowaway, a hurricane strikes, and the teenagers are carried miles from the shore and shipwrecked. What follows is a harrowing, yet heartwarming, story of survival, as the teens battle hypothermia, dehydration, man-eating sharks--and along the way, confront their own deepest secrets, including their catalytic roles in the disaster.

So. Scary.

Sharks and Boys isn’t scary in the “Boo!” type of way. It’s scary in the “oh my gosh I’m going to have nightmares about man eating sharks for the rest of my life” sort of way. I know this has been said numerous times before, but I just need to say it again. This cover does not do this book justice. At all. If I were to see this in a bookshop, I honestly wouldn’t have picked it up because of the cover and the happy-go-lucky title. I really don’t want anybody to not pick this up because of the cover.

Sharks and Boys was straight-up badass. Every part of the book was thrilling. My only complaint about the story itself was that amount of characters and the names of the characters. I felt like because there were so many people on the lifeboat, it was hard to keep track of who was who and what their backstory was. The unusual names didn’t help this situation either.

This is one of the most interesting storylines in a young adult novel that I’ve read in a long time. It isn’t completely original, but the story is played out and written really well. Kristen Tracey does a really good job building up suspense to some of the major events in the novel.

I really enjoyed Sharks and Boys and strongly encourage you to pick it up. Kristen Tracey wrote an addicting and fast-paced novel that I loved!

FTC- Publisher.