Island

by Patrick Downes

A teenaged boy struggles as he watches his family and relationships fracture after the death of his mother, and is now faced with the terrible possibility that his twin brother may have just killed their father. Seventeen-year-old Rad comes home to find his father lying broken and dead at the bottom of the ravine behind their house. Rad’s twin brother, shaken but very much alive, had watched their father fall. Desperate to understand what has happened before calling the police, Rad confronts his brother and the complicated landscape of their past. He reconstructs not just the circumstances leading to his father’s death, but the history of his family. How can a family simply disintegrate? Were they ever happy, or were the roots of unhappiness always there? What plagued his father? What plagues Rad? As the time comes to do the right thing, the question remains. Did his brother kill their father? And what will happen to the boys now?

184 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2019

About the author

Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes are a married couple who were both injured during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. Jessica’s service dog, Rescue, joined their family in 2014. Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book... this book made my head hurt. I read the whole thing and still don’t know what I read.

[Gary Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patrick Downes’s Island is a disturbing psychological portrayal of a family’s disintegration. Narrated by Rad, one of the family’s twin sons, this short novel opens with the discovery of their father’s body at the bottom of a cliff. Was the death an accident, suicide, or was Key, the other twin, somehow involved? As Rad explains his family’s tortured history, including his mother’s sudden death, his father’s mental breakdown, and their crumbling house, readers become absorbed in Rad’s interior world that is equal parts intellectual depth and damaged identity.

[Taylor Koepfle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was captivated by this book. Don’t let the reviews fool you. If you like psychological mysteries, this one is for you. Through the point of view or Rad, a 17 yr old twin, he explains what happened to his deteriorating family. He switches back and forth between a conversation with his brother about how their dad died, to comparing people to islands. The maturity he shows, due to all the hard life lessons he’s faced growing up with a dead mother and an absent father, was incredible. I could not put this book down. I literally read it in two days.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to say about this odd little book. It's more philosophy than story, for starters. It's also unrelentingly sad and depressing. The narrator, Rad, is sympathetic but not all that likable. Plotwise, the story's kind of all over the place, which makes it at times boring, confusing, and bleak. If it were a longer book, I wouldn't have finished it; because it's only 179 pages, I stuck it out. In the end, though, it just wasn't a very enjoyable or satisfying read.

[April Liley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just...weird

I nearly gave up on this book several times and wish I would have. The ending didn't give me any closure. The weird historical facts about the islands added nothing to the story.

[Elizabeth Appenheimer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A teenager and his twin brother see more death and adversity in their lifetime than most people ever will, and this is their story of getting through. A really interesting perspective on trauma and coping, and the impact of our choices on the people around us.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, what an interesting book. I don't know entirely how I feel about everything. The ending wasn't really that satisfying, and it feels like it should have been longer, but at the same time it was just the right length.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a bit to finish this one, I just forgot to log it in but overall this is a very interesting story. The maturity growth within this story is unique.