The Book Diva's Reads

Enchanted Island by May Torres is described as a supernatural coming of age story with a historical twist. The story begins with Gabriella (Gabby), Gilberto and Molly as eleven year olds in middle school. Molly is the daughter of absent and privileged parents. She knows Gabby as the daughter of her family's maid, Rosa. The two girls don't have a lot in common but forge a friendship that is repeatedly tried by petty jealousies, envy and peer-pressure. Gabby and Gilberto hit it off immediately and become inseparable throughout middle school and begin dating when they enter high school. Gabby, Gilberto and Molly travel to Puerto Rico the summer they are all twelve and meet Juan, a slightly older teen. Molly has a crush on Juan and is jealous of his attention to Gabby. This jealousy motivates her to try and trick Gabby resulting in a serious fall and injury.

The first half of this story is devoted to the routine trials and tribulations associated with being a tween and teen. The second half focuses more on the pitfalls associated with growing older and high school. It also superficially deals with some serious issues such as rape, gang-rape and teen pregnancy. Nothing gets reported and when the victim, Molly winds up pregnant she simply chooses to ignore the pregnancy as if it will go away if she doesn't think about it. This seems to be taking naivete to an extreme. The story hints at the paranormal in the first half with Gabby seeing an ancient Indian chief and swearing that he saved her from a life-threatening fall on Mona Island. However, no one else sees him and they assume Gabby must have been dreaming. During the second half of the book the paranormal, supernatural aspects are front and center. All four of the teens are forced to relive their pasts in order to save the future. The historical aspects are quite interesting, however, the supernatural/paranormal seemed forced and overshadowed everything else. I think it was because of the rather forced nature of the supernatural and paranormal that I wasn't able to enjoy this story and had to force myself to plod through to the end.