You're not easy to love: ISLAND TIME.

Island Time: A Novel by Georgia Clark
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Kelly and Lee families couldn't be more different. But their daughters are married, so they are vacationing together on a remote tropical island off the coast of Queensland for a few days. Then a volcano eruption completely derails everyone's plans, stranding the families on the island for six weeks with two employees. While there, everyone is forced to do some intense reckoning about their lives, loves, and futures.

Oh I wanted to like this book--I always try to champion LGBTQIA books--but I just couldn't get into this one. It felt so LONG. Like, so long you guys. I kept thinking I'd read most of it, and then I'd see I wasn't even 25% done. It felt like so much of this book could have been shortened or benefited from a deep edit.

There are a lot of people in ISLAND TIME and truly, none of them seem that nice or interesting. The Kelly family consists of Julia and Gene (parents) and their daughters Amelia and Matty. The daughters come across as spoiled brats. We rehash their problems over and over. As for the Lees, we have parents Randall and Ludmilla and their daughter Parker (married to Matty). There are also two island employees, including Liss (also queer). I wanted to feel an affinity for more people with so many queer characters (I didn't mind Liss too much), but everyone came across as self-centered or annoying. There's a large natural disaster, people elsewhere have died, the natural life and vegetation of this island is in peril, but wow, these folks seem to care less. Also, somehow there is power and enough food for six weeks (copious, fancy food), which just didn't make things seem realistic at all.

Everyone has issues in ISLAND--so many issues. Personal issues. Work issues. Romantic issues. So many issues. They rehash these issues over and over. And then again. Often you might want characters to fix their issues because you care for them, but in this book, I often felt like I didn't care if they resolved them or not, because they just irritated me.

ISLAND does discuss the indigenous people of Australia in depth. I feel like I learned a lot there, as well as about some of the animals and plant life of the country. That, I appreciated.

Overall, this book just didn't work for me. I'm glad there were queer characters, but their relationships felt stilted or full of insta-love, and mostly, everything was just long and drawn out. 2.5 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Atria/Emily Bestler Books and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.

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