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Journalism of Courage
Holly Jackson’s Five Survive follows six friends on a road trip from Philadelphia to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere, leaving them with no cell service. Initially, the group assumes this to be an accident, until they are stranded with the tires shot out by a sniper in the dark. His reason? One of the six members is privy to a deadly secret and none of them will get away until he finds it. The only problem… there isn’t just one person with a dark past or a dangerous secret. Tensions are high and the 31-inch RV is too small for this pressure-cooker environment. One by one, they begin unravelling.
Not all the characters are well-developed, since most of the book is written from the perspective of one character. Being a standalone book as opposed to Jackson’s previous bestseller, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, it focuses more on the plot and less on the characters. The book is written in sections based on hourly time slots, starting at 10pm, from the point of view of the protagonist, Red. Through Red’s perspective, we learn that she lost her mother, a police officer, five years ago in an encounter. Red’s character is given the most space with a detailed explanation of her background and current situation. While her internal monologue helps to convey the effect Red’s mother’s death has had on her, it also works to mitigate some of the anxiety we might have felt towards Red’s own survival, since the entire story is written from her perspective. Red’s narration also reveals the grief and guilt she feels about her mother’s death and explains other important plot points, such as her know-how with walkie-talkies and her protocol responses to potentially dangerous situations. While her instincts kick in when they need to, she is not always able to act on them fast enough.
Red’s best friend, Maddy, is protective and caring, but she lives in the shadow of her older, quite unlikeable brother, Oliver. Oliver is selfish, insecure and unsympathetic. He emerges as a natural leader whose divide-and-rule mindset is only as problematic as his overt nepotism. His girlfriend, Reyna, is the only one who can seem to control his impulses. She is largely a supporting character but her secret strengthens the narrative. Oliver and Reyna are accompanying the rest as chaperones. The other two in the RV include theatre kid Simon, who is friends with Red and Maddy and whose RV they borrowed, and Simon’s friend Arthur, whom the group knows very little about. Arthur and Red form a connection that is a classic “will they/won’t they” trope.
While the narrative started off slow with the location and plot setup, it picks up pace, with the entire mystery playing out over a period of eight hours. The writing keeps you engaged until the very end, with its edge-of-your-seat quality and unpredictable twists. Though we are left with a sense of closure in the end (despite the climax being slightly far-fetched), there remain some unfinished plot points.
