not my usual read: On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves

I like to stay in the shallow end of the pool. I really only like to go out to dinner at the Olive Garden. And I only read young adult.

That's just who I am. (I'd say, "take it or leave it," but I think I have a few friends that might just drop me like a soggy fry. So take me as I am.)

The thing is, I almost never read anything that isn't strictly young adult fiction. Earlier this summer I had a few friends insist that I read On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves. 

After a restless night, I figured why not. I downloaded the book from Amazon and read from 12:30 to 3:45 am, stopping only because I knew I had to get up in a few hours to teach an aerobics class. But I didn't spare any time after the class to finish the book.

I loved it.

I more than loved it. I thought it was witty and emotionally charged and brilliant and everything I wish I could write (aside from some of the um, well, steamy scenes. That's not my usual MO.)

So, I say, if you're ok with some serious steaminess and my complete lack of grammar when professing book love, check out:

Summary:
When thirty-year-old English teacher Anna Emerson is offered a job tutoring T.J. Callahan at his family's summer rental in the Maldives, she accepts without hesitation; a working vacation on a tropical island trumps the library any day. T.J. Callahan has no desire to leave town, not that anyone asked him. He's almost seventeen and if having cancer wasn't bad enough, now he has to spend his first summer in remission with his family - and a stack of overdue assignments - instead of his friends.

Anna and T.J. are en route to join T.J.'s family in the Maldives when the pilot of their seaplane suffers a fatal heart attack and crash-lands in the Indian Ocean. Adrift in shark-infested waters, their life jackets keep them afloat until they make it to the shore of an uninhabited island.

Now Anna and T.J. just want to survive and they must work together to obtain water, food, fire, and shelter. Their basic needs might be met but as the days turn to weeks, and then months, the castaways encounter plenty of other obstacles, including violent tropical storms, the many dangers lurking in the sea, and the possibility that T.J.'s cancer could return. As T.J. celebrates yet another birthday on the island, Anna begins to wonder if the biggest challenge of all might be living with a boy who is gradually becoming a man.

Read anything good lately? Steamy or not?