The Only Survivors

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A set of wide wooden steps led up to the front door, where we’d taken that single photo our first year—the eight of us crammed together, sitting shoulder to shoulder, knees pressing into the body in front of us, like proof: We’re still here. It had to be Amaya. She was the one who reached out with the details each year. She cared for us deeply, as a collective. She cared about everything deeply.

Didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, dropping my luggage beside the bed closer to the window, in the room we always shared. Creatures of habit, all of us. The comfort of routines lingered from our school years, assigned positions and predicted places. The rooms were almost dormitory-style, with identical layouts: two beds and similar furniture in each. Only the color scheme varied, so we called the rooms by their colors: Grace and Hollis in the yellow room; Brody and Joshua in the navy room. The main bedroom on the first floor always belonged to Oliver. Grace gave him a tight-lipped look. Then: “Let her be.” Grace spoke with an air of wisdom, or authority, how I imagined all therapists must, as if she had some extra insight that the rest of us didn’t. First, it’s a challenge when there is a large cast of characters to really get to know any of them, and with the exception of Cass, that is the case here, as well. As a reader who enjoys strong character development, that is one reason that this one missed the mark for me. We learn the bare minimum about each, so I never grew to care for or empathize with any of them.

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Since a tragic accident on a school trip ten years ago, the nine remaining survivors made a pact to reconvene on the yearly anniversary.

a b c d "A scientific approach to writing fiction". MIT News. Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Retrieved 2023-04-04.His name reverberated through the group with a jolt. There was a prolonged stretch of silence before Josh raised one shoulder in a conceding shrug. This slow burn, claustrophobic mystery made me assumptions till I reached the last chapter. Tension slowly builds and when things finally escalated you feel the exact goosebumps, sitting at the edge of your seat, increasing your reading speed to find out the big revelation. The author successfully didn’t give much away and the final twists make you scream WTH! I didn’t see them coming!

Almost immediately, something feels off this year. Cassidy is the first to notice when Amaya, annual organizer, slips away, overwhelmed. This wouldn’t raise alarm except for the impending storm. Suddenly, they’re facing the threat of closed roads and surging waters…again. Then Amaya stops responding to her phone. After all they’ve been through, she wouldn’t willfully make them worry. Would she? And—as they promised long ago—each survivor will do whatever he or she can do to save one another. Won’t they? Cassidy Bent has no intention of attending the only survivors annual reunion at The Shallows, the beachside home belonging to one of them. That is until she hears of the death of Alan. Amaya, Clara, Grace, Oliver, Joshua, Ian, Hollis, Brady and of course, Cass are bound together by the miracle that there are any survivors at all from the 2013 disaster. The story is told Then and Now via which we gradually learn what/how they survive and what they have collectively guarded as secret. However, is the truth genie finally out of the bottle? Amaya blinked at me slowly. “Is everyone else here?” she asked, pivoting the conversation, sparing me the awkwardness.

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On a day I was feeling a little out-of-sorts, The Only Survivor was exactly what I needed. It felt a little like I Know What You Did Last Summer meets And Then There Were None. The past/present storyline worked perfectly as the reader tries to figure out what exactly happened in the past while Cassidy and her friends are trying to figure out what is happening in the present. It was a habit I couldn’t shake, the question always on my mind. In a room full of people, a bus full of strangers: Who do you save? A thought experiment playing out in real time. A horror interlude in the monotony of my daily life. a b c d Nadworny, Elissa (July 31, 2022). "How do you write a captivating thriller? This author found clues in the woods". NPR . Retrieved April 4, 2023. Or maybe Ms. Miranda, who has also written several young adult books, is just more comfortable writing characters of a young(er) age? I dunno. It was a large group of characters but they were all so distinctive and well-drawn that I enjoyed the varying dynamics a great deal. I could relate to each person in one way or another, which made for a very grounded and realistic reading experience. These weren’t horrible people doing horrible things, but rather normal humans trying to survive in the aftermath of a horrible ordeal that bonded them for life.

They keep coming to the Shallow at each year: because it’s a place of safety, and retreat, isolated from the rest of the world, and surrounded on all sides by the endless deep. It would be hard to concoct a more promisingly sinister setting [that] affords plenty of hiding places for predators and plenty of opportunities for the weather itself to turn villainous. Miranda uses this setting to maximum effect, both as a plot device and as a way to inject steady droplets of terror into the narrative. Masterfully suspenseful.” The story became much more interesting to me when the chapters about the accident began. Before that, it was hard to understand their motivations for meeting annually when it appeared they were barely friends.Someone’s on the beach,” Amaya called from the top of the steps. She had her hands on the wooden rail, though she wouldn’t be able to see clearly from there. The group created an annual retreat to be together on the anniversary and hopefully stop their numbers from dwindling. This year Cassidy does not want to attend, and has worked hard to distance herself from the others. When she changes her plans last minute, she arrives to feel that something is off. Not only is a storm coming, but now one of the remaining seven is missing and they can’t help but wonder if there is something much darker at play.