To Die For By Mark Svendsen

Random, 2011.ISBN 9781864719314. e-Book available.
(Best suited for 13+) Genre: Thriller/Survival. For his birthday, Christos takes his father's boat on his first solo voyage. He plans to fish and then camp overnight on a local island, but things go wrong when Christos runs the boat aground on a reef, attracting a four-metre tiger shark. And so begins the most terrifying night of his life.
This book is definitely one for fishing fans. Many of the fishing terms are confusing and the style of writing employed is also confusing to begin with, often moving disjointedly from sentence to sentence. The first few chapters are drawn out and wouldn't easily catch a young reader's attention.
When the shark does appear, the scenes are well-written and exciting, perfectly capturing the image of survival and fear. The description and disjointed sentences work well here, illustrating the terrified and desperate state of Christos's mind at this point. However, after the shark disappears from the story, the expected conclusion is prolonged with unnecessary sub-plots.
It is an all right book, but definitely one for those interested in fishing.
Rebecca Adams (Student)