Name: The Cay
ISBN: 9780141355948

Theodore Taylor

A tense and compulsive survival story of a young boy and an old man adrift on the ocean, then marooned on a tiny, deserted island. It is also a fascinating study of the relationship between Phillip, white, American, and influenced by his mother's prejudices, and the black man upon whom Phillip's life depends.

The Cay

Cheyenne Kinney 

Quote I like: “Like silent, hungry sharks that swim in the darkness of the sea, the German submarines arrived in the middle of the night.”

Overview
I loved this book, a lot. It was really hard for me to find things that I didn’t like about it. My boyfriend recommended it to me and I was skeptical at first. It isn’t something that I normally read. It seems to me that the books that I love the most are ones that I tend to be a bit skeptical about. Most of the things I include in my cons section are things that I don’t think are necessarily bad.

Plot
Let me tell you, I normally don’t love person vs nature book or books that rely heavily upon this one type of conflict for the plot. This one I did enjoy though. The plot was well thought out and has happened on a number of occasions, though not on these circumstances or with this exact outcome.

Characters
Timothy, Phillip and Stew Cat are the three main characters in the novel. Although Stew Cat is, in fact, a cat, I really loved all three of these characters. Timothy and Phillip were relatable as people in this situation and they reacted in interesting ways to the troubles that befell them. Though the book was short, we really got to know each other in the time frame. It felt as though I was on the island with them and knew how they would react to the different events. As for Stew Cat, I love animals in books especially animals that help the people out in ways that you can’t even fathom for yourself.


  Pros and Cons


Pros
The emotion that you are able to feel emanating from this book is outstanding. The author expresses the different emotions everyone is feeling in a way that made me feel those very same emotions. The way the setting is shown is impressive and I could fully picture everything that was going on because of how well thought out it was. I could see the sea and feel the wind. I knew how the weather changed and could feel it in the air.

Cons
I can’t really say any of these cons are large turn-offs because they really don’t impact the story in any negative way. I wish the book was longer so that we had more time to be on the island with Timothy and Phillip and so we could see how they would react in even more situations. The only other thing that I can say was a con was that Timothy’s accent was portrayed so well that it was hard for me to understand what he was saying sometimes. 

Would I recommend it?
I would recommend this book without hesitation to anyone. It is a stunning read and I only wish I could erase my memory of it so I could experience it again for the first time.

aisha

It might as well be one of my favourite books of 2014 because of just one page.

Kirsten Simkiss

I read this book years ago in elementary school and I remembered really enjoying it. Reading it now, the story doesn't seem quite so grand or realistic. I remember having trouble understanding the way Timothy spoke, and even as I read it as an adult, some of the words that had been changed to reflect his accent seemed odd to me, like "downg" instead of just "down". Naturally, as a child I had little knowledge of a Carribbean accent. 

The racism at the beginning made me bristle a little bit, but this was written in 1969 and staged from the perspective of a child who reflects how his parents raised him to think. Plus, the character development changes Phillip's understanding of race.

However, I still love the relationship between Timothy and Phillip, and how Phillip grows from a spoiled child with no concerns to a child forced to grow wiser by his situation.

I'll give it 4 stars for the sake of my childhood love of the story, but I doubt that it's a book I'll be reading again. It's definitely a children's literature classic though.

Maya Malouin

We recently read this book in class and I thought it was one of the few good books we've read all year. It has a wonderful plot that always keeps you guessing on what comes next. I was even tempted to read ahead.

The Cay

Reviews

Highlights