Castaway on Angsty Island

Hey y’all, I actually finished a book. Well, two, but this entry will focus on just one of them, Bright Young Things, by the lovely Scarlett Thomas.

Bright Young Things is about six British twenty-somethings who go in for a job interview but end up stranded together on a mysterious island, with no idea why they are there or how they got there. We learn a little about each of them before they arrive: Anne is an uninspired, sarcastic virgin with Peter Pan Syndrome. Jamie, a mathematician, has a job and a girlfriend but wants out of both. Thea is a working-class girl who is woefully unaware of most of the modern world. Bryn is a dreadlocked drug dealer who could’ve “been a contender” had he just applied himself. Emily is a recent graduate with a degree in art who has turned to being an escort for money. And Paul is a soon-to-be-laid-off computer programmer who wants to drain his company’s coffers and distribute the wealth to random people. They all see the same ad in the job section of the newspaper (which shows you just how long ago this book was written), apply for the job, and go to an interview, where the last thing they remember is being offered a cup of coffee, shortly after which, they wake up side by side on an island.

The island’s mysteries get curiouser and curiouser. They weren’t meant to starve or freeze to death; there is a house with a kitchen full of food, drinks, and other supplies, and six bedrooms fully outfitted with bathrooms and fresh clothes. Despite being city kids, they even manage to locate and repair a generator. Over the course of a few days, they get to know each other better and attempt to figure out the answers to their questions, namely, why were the six of them chosen to be here, and how will they be able to escape?

It seems like it could be the premise for a touchy-feely book, where everyone undergoes a great personal journey. Well, in truth…it is, and it isn’t. While they all do find out a little bit more about themselves, it actually unfolds more like a tale of six strangers actually stranded on an island, complete with panic, arguments, side-taking, resolutions, and ultimately, working together. For a bunch of supposedly “bright young things,” they’re proven to be horribly inept at most of the basic survival skills, which – let’s face it – probably most millennials would be as well, myself included. They do have occasional moments of clarity, but they’re all very flawed and human. Even though there are only six of them, it is hard to keep track of them at times, and there are a few plot holes. For example, in the Truth or Dare scene, the author mentions “Paul’s secret” but we never find out what it is, and in one of the later chapters, Emily runs off and no one knows where she went, yet a few pages later she’s back with the group, eating dinner, with no explanation of how/when/why she returned. As a reader, we know that there are limited places she could go on an island, and being a social creature, would eventually return to the house, but I had to flip back a couple pages, and…nope. they make a big deal about her running out of the house but nothing is said about her return.

Overall, although it’s not my favorite Scarlett Thomas book (which seems to be a popular opinion among Scarlett Thomas fans, at least according to Amazon.com’s page on it), it was still a page-turner. Hopefully, in the future, she’ll write some sort of follow up which gives us a bunch more questions and too few answers.

This book review was brought to you by me wishing I could escape to that island. And FWIW, I’m totally Jamie, except not as mathematical but way nerdier.

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