The Island (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell; First Thus edition (January 1, 1990)
• ISBN-10: 0553133969
• ISBN-13: 978-0553133967
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #575,553 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There be pirates!, October 6, 2003

By	S. Griffin (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Island (Hardcover)

I must admit 'The Island' was a guilty pleasure to read. But I enjoyed it SO much! Peter Benchley has written a suspenseful story about modern-day pirates. Well, maybe not so modern-day, as the pirates behave in a decidedly archaic manner. The ending could have gone either of two ways, and I wasn't sure which way that would be. This kept the suspense going until the very last pages. I recommend this book for good escapist reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Undecided..., May 2, 2004

By	P. Robinson "Relic113" (Calgary) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Island (Hardcover)

After watching Pirates of the Carribean i pulled this one off my shelf where it had been collecting dust for a decade...(I bought it after reading Jaws) The Idea of this book is pretty interesting: a man arrives at an island where the people have not "evolved" and are basically still living the life of pirates and do not conform to modern values...There is a hidden treasure of course... but not one we might expect... The problem with this otherwise fine boook is that too much time is speant on the relationship between the protagonist and his son and the troubles in their relationship and not enough time dealing witht he pirates and the seamonsters...

Imagine "Jaws" with Chief Brody's son on board bickering instead of "sharking" and you will get my point...
All in all not a bad read, but "Jaws" and "The Beast" are much more satisfying...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fun but dated -, August 25, 2009

By	joe-maryland (Stevensville, MD United States) - See all my reviews

First things first - this isn't Tolstoy, it is beach reading. If you are under about 40 this book may not make much sense. Reporters using typewriters for writing and folders of clippings for research will sound like something from hundreds of years ago, but people actually did things like this at least up to the 1980s. Then there is the setting in the Turks and Caicos. Believe it or not, there was a time before GPS, Google Earth, and Sat Phones when you really could be out in the middle of no place with inaccurate maps and no easy way to communicate with the outside world. I have been to that part of the world a few times in the 80s and early 90s and Peter Benchley was quite accurate in his description of a tropical backwater with semi-working phones and the occasional arrival of a possibly drunk pilot in an old beater DC-3. One place I landed had seen no visitors for MONTHS and we started an island-wide letter writing frenzy because we offered to take the mail back to Miami in our plane (and no I wasn't drunk). It also may seem that pirates have always been around, but in the late 1970s piracy was just getting going again after a centuries long absence from the Caribbean*. Unlike the pirates in this book, the real pirates were quite modern and were mainly associated with the drug trade. You can't think too hard when reading this - what group of people would spend their lives in misery on a hellhole of an island when they didn't have to. 17th century, 20th century, or today pirates want a lot of money right now and a place to spend it!

*Now they are mainly gone again from much of the islands. The drug runners have moved elsewhere and so piracy to obtain drug boats has died down. They mostly operate now down in Central America and are more into robbing than stealing the whole boat. People still do get killed by them though :(