Sweet Friday Island

Synopsis

Uninhabited and remote, Sweet Friday Island rises out of the Sea of Cortez, the flattened top of an ancient mountain. Its rugged terrain makes it the perfect place for fifteen-year-old Peg Toland and her adventurous dad to take their favorite kind of vacation. But its idyllic isolation and wild landscape ultimately turn Sweet Friday Island into a terrifying and deadly trap. Inexorably forced into fighting for their lives Peg and her father are suddenly struggling as well with a question many of us pose but need never answer: Are we really capable of killing another human to protect someone we love?

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-In this revision of a 1984 title, teenage Peg and her father go on a camping vacation to a supposedly uninhabited island in the Sea of Cortez. Ignoring the warnings of the mainland locals (and Peg's own uneasiness), they arrive on the island only to become quickly victimized by an unseen assailant they label Seor Psycho. Their only means of transportation is destroyed, the lenses in the girl's sunglasses are crushed, and the diabetic father's insulin kit is stolen. Subtle changes in this version make the terror even stronger, with more of a psychological twist and posttraumatic analysis. It is up to Peg to save her father, and to decide whether, in order for him to survive, she can kill another person. Only when they are rescued do they meet the perpetrator face to face, and years later Peg returns to get the full story. While it's happening, the tension and suspense will keep readers turning pages, but it seems unnecessary for Taylor to state specifically Peg's moral dilemma in this edition. It comes through quite clearly in the course of the story.-Susan Knorr, Milwaukee Public Library, WI