I was drawn in by the premise of this book. The writing was spare and the characters quirky. I enjoyed the dialogue. I really wanted to love this book, and based on the blurb and cover, I thought I would. It is original and still a good read, regardless.

The title was great, the cover was great, the premise was great. I did not like this book as it felt too disconnected for me, lots of stuff happened but I could not understand how it all fit.

This was not for me. What was the point? The only upside to this one was that it was a quick read. Other than that it just seemed to go absolutely nowhere.

aggressively average … it just felt like a whole lot of nothing happened. i didn’t really see the point of the book — might just be me.

I enjoyed this book about two teenagers on a road trip. The writing is lovely and really soared in places. A really beautiful first novel.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me access in exchange for a review.
This book definitely had a lot of potential to be really good. I liked the concept, the hints at magical realism/fantasy and it would've enriched the plot if they were true. But without them, unfortunately, I didn't really like the book. It was fun reading it because of the writing style, which kept me hooked to it.
Everything seemed really pointless, there are so many characters in the story that enter the plot at some point but none of them actually managed to add anything to the story. It was just going from one pointless point to another.
I liked the descriptions and the imagery but nor could I connect to the characters nor really got any interest as to where they were headed.
The ending was still good but it could've been so much better overall if the execution was good.

With a hand drawn map, a backpack and very little money Julia is searching for Egg Island. She stops at a gas station on the way. Here she meets Colt who works at the gas station with his grandfather. Julia asks for the restroom and is shown there by Colt who stands guard because the lock on the door is broken. After a bit of small talk Julia is on her way. Soon after Colt drives up and offers Julia a ride. Tired and hot Julia accepts. Once a solo journey soon becomes a two person adventure for the two teenagers.
EGG ISLAND is a coming of age novel. I liked the characters and the story. It is a good first novel but I felt that something was missing. Perhaps it needed a bit more suspense or drama. Overall I did like EGG ISLAND. The cover is very appealing.
Thank you to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced digital edition of the book.

3.5 stars
I enjoyed this - a delightful adventure despite its realities of having nothing and trying to find yourself. The end was right but I can't help but feel it needed a bit more, but in other ways again, it was right. I'd definitely give this one a go, short digestible chapters, loveable characters, bit weird at times but in a good way.

'Egg Island' is a quirky, at times whimsical series of episodes and dialogues, which sometimes border on the absurd and occasionally recall the iconic 'Pulp Fiction' kind of exchanges, but are, despite their light-hearted nature and occasional wisdom, not enough to drive the story forward.

Both main characters, eighteen-year-old Julia and Colt, are underdeveloped. Though they're no doubt interesting and often witty, we learn nothing about their inner workings or motivations. While at least Colt seems to be romantically interested in Julia, all she wants is to find Egg Island, a semi-mythical place that might or might not exist, which supposedly hides the crack in the universe, and where Yulia's dad might be. On the way there, in the car Colt has stolen from his grandad, they encounter places and people that have almost a cartoonish quality. Julia seems to frequently run away from these people, lie to them, steal from them, or all three. I struggled to relate to or like her and wished I could find out more about who she is, than about what she does.

I found the ending quite random and unsatisfying, but enjoyed the cinematic storytelling and the occasional slip of the narrative towards magic realism. There are some really beautifully written passages in 'Egg Island', showing a glimpse of the depth this story could have had.

Many thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy of this book.

Egg Island is a debut novel from Sara Flemington and brings you on a strange journey through the backends of the North of Canada.. The story starts with two teenagers Julia and Colt meeting in a gas station, she is a runaway and he immediately connects with her and takes it on himself to help in her quest and runs off with her in his grandfather's car.

We then follow their journey to this mysterious place that doesn’t appear on any maps – we don’t know if it exists and why Julia took off only that she is searching for her father who may be there. The road-trip is interesting and features a range of diverse side characters that they encounter ranging from an Amish community to a hippy community.

There is a lot of potential in the writing in the book but I felt there were some unexplained questions such as why Julia really left home and other loose ends along the journey.

Thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this debut novel.

A languid fever dream, this story drifts along the bone-dry dirt roads of the far north, in search of the memory of a myth. Semi-feral Julia and Colt are two restless teens who meet by coincidence in a gas station partway through Julia's journey to Egg Island, where she hopes to find her missing father and an alternative to the mediocre working-class life she anticipates. Colt, simultaneously worldly and immature, volunteers to drive her to Egg Island for much the same reason. Together and apart they explore the wild wastelands, meeting an eccentric cast of supporting actors, getting to know each other, and forming a tight bond which sustains them on their voyage of discovery of the world, of themselves, and of their futures.

I loved the premise of this story and wish there had been more about Julia's background. As the central focus of the story, I felt her motivations were at once clear -- she was struggling to cope with her absent mother and wild siblings; and vague -- what was the final impetus to push her on her journey? Why did she seem to have a sadistic streak? The author took a risk in beginning not with Julia's first steps towards Egg Island but with meeting Colt, and as a result the reader lacks information the author has chosen to hide. All that aside, Julia is a captivating lead with great determination and drive, and the author keeps pace with her perfectly. I empathised with her circumstances and with her ability to hold on to hope during an increasingly hopeless journey.

At times Julia's and Colt's actions seem erratic or unbelievable, but the choices we made as teens were often erratic or unbelievable, right? As they struggle to find food, or water, or gas to keep going, as they encounter strange places that seem like mirages in the desert, the world is deliberately painted with a very broad brush, to maintain that sense of disorientation. I found it a good book to dip in and out of, because immersing myself in Julia and Colt's misty landscape that feels like a series of long, straight roads to nowhere was sometimes tiring and left me with that sense of indistinctiveness, of things blurring at the edges. And I think that's the author's intent.

While this is ostensibly the story of Julia and Colt's relationship, it's also about connection: the ties that bind us to other people, to places, and to things. It's about what we can let go, and what we must hold on to, and what sustains us.

Thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the opportunity to review this book. Egg Island will be published on 9 August 2022.

When I get a pre-release book to read, I try to be really clear to prospective buyers that the theme of the book was, how stitched together the plot was and whether it could keep you engaged.

This book appears to be an idealistic story about the grass being greener somewhere else. She is looking for Egg Island, which her father always talked about and is somewhere in mythical northern Canada. Well, I stuck with the book, but the story just got weirder and weirder. I don't really see the purpose of the story, although the underlying goal of the book was clear and successful in the end.

As a suggestion for the new author, keep your goal clear, but let it hang together better. You have promise.

This book has so much promise and is an excellent mix of fascinating characters… but I felt like there were too many loose ends and story lines that never were resolved. Overall, I did enjoy the journey of Julia and it had a decent ending. I would read more by this author and I did like the way she described things and people. It was good for a first book but I think she needs to really hone in a writing style of her own. It did remind me a lot of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” but feel that it is missing something. The dark humor and snarky camaraderie between Julia and Colt kept me reading. This was a fascinating book in the end.

Thank you, Net Galley, for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is scheduled for release in August of 2022.

Egg Island is an ambitious debut novel about coming of age. Julia embarks on a journey to Egg Island to find her dad, but the motive and stakes are lost in translation. Her companion Colt offers little to move the story along in a cohesive manner. They are both often cruel for the sake of nothing. Throughout the journey, they meet a string of side characters, again neither raising the stakes or contributing to the story as a whole. At the end, it felt like a major disconnect of stories that hardly went together and a finale that left me questioning why anything I just read had mattered.

on a quest to locate her dad on egg island, we get lost in the travels of eighteen year old julia, the people she meets, the troubles she encounters. accompanied by colt, a gas station attendant who makes it his duty to help her on her journey.

this book held so much promise, i wanted so dearly to enjoy it but quickly found it to be a drag. the storyline held many interesting encounters for our protagonist just to jump to the next with no resolve, many lose ends, many moments of questioning, what is happening? what is the point in all this?

this book has left me indifferent, the writing was wonderful but it hasn’t left me with much to say. maybe i’m not the target audience? as i believe pre-teen me would devour this story and all its whacky twists and turns.

This is an utterly charming story of two teenagers on a journey. to a called Egg Island which is a place of endless possibilities. Julia has all the emotional turmoil and bravado that a teenage girl needs to keep her going on her relentless path with an inaccurate map.. I loved that she meets so much positivity and kindness, even in situations that I expected to turn bad. The unexpected kindness of strangers was refreshing and of course the relationship that developed between Julia and Colt was just beautiful. I was left wanting to know more about Colt and his ant-farm (there must be another book in that!). Sara Flemington's style of writing and her stunning descriptive words/sentences/paragraphs I could read forever.. I'm sure you'll read it in one sitting, as I did.,

"He looked me in the eyes like he was going to love me then murder me, then spend the rest of his life building a shrine for me".

Egg Island is a sweet tale of two teens who find each other on the search of the mythical egg Island. It's hilariously silly, deceptively simple and a quick read with a lot to leave the reader thinking about.

The author prefaces the book with similarities to 'the end of the Fxcking world', and the book certainly has similar vibes, but is equally unique in it's delivery and end product. An enjoyable read.

"If you think about it, the dinosaurs were here for like, millions of years, just stomping around, not doing anything useful. We've been here for way less time than that, and look at everything we've done. We invented cars, escalators. We even sent a man to the freaking moon."

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc.

As I finish the last paragraph of Egg Island, the debut novel from author Sara Flemington, I have to wonder. Why? What was the point? Was there one? It sure didn't feel like it to me. Maybe I'm not the target audience for this. It feels like it's meant more for young adults but I'm not even sure what they would get out of it.

To sum things up, our protagonist Julia decides she wants to travel to a place called Egg Island to locate her dad. Right from the get go she's on her way and teams up with a guy named Colt who she meets at a gas station. He steals his grandfather's car and the journey truly begins.

From there they have car troubles and meet quirky characters who are there to either give advice, food, or some mixture of both. It felt like a series of vignettes that didn't really go anywhere by the end. We move from Point A to B to C to D before circling back to A, which by then nothing was gained or lost. No one grew and nothing truly changed for these characters. We went a full 360 to be right back where we were.

Besides that, neither of our leads are particularly interesting or likeable. Julia is fine but she's like a hamburger, in that you're okay with what you have but you wish there was more substance for the overall experience. You're full but not satisfied. Colt is just odd. He's so matter of fact and dry in everything that he does and says that it becomes wooden and irritating as the story progresses. I didn't find any of their bizarre camaraderie believable for a second.

I don't really have much more to say about Egg Island. I'm not angry or upset or happy that I read it. Instead I'm left with nothing and somehow I find that worse.

Thanks to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy of this debut novel.

“Egg Island”, Sara Flemington’s debut novel, is a hodge-podge of dark humour and an adventure bereft of destination. Eighteen year old Julia, is on a quest to reach Egg Island. A place located in the middle of nowhere, and leading to nowhere, Egg Island may as well be a myth or an outcome of manufactured folklore. This mythical place - legend has it- accords a spectacular view of a rip in the sky, an Ozone hole. But what is most significant for Julia and her future, is that Egg Island may also contain the only key for Julia to locate her missing father. Keeping her mother and four year old twin brothers in the dark, Julia ferrets herself out her home and embarks on an uncertain and long trek to the elusive Egg Island.

Julia meets Colt, an eighteen year old lad of a gazillion eccentricities in a convenience store adjacent to a gas station. In unsolicited fashion, the tall chap wearing a studded belt and a crusty eyebrow, declares himself (and his grandfather’s car), allies in Julia’s quest. What follows is a series of bizarre escapades ranging from panhandling coins to stealing food, and everything in between. Colt, cars, colonies of hutterites, and cold nights later, the duo find themselves as far from their mission as they were at the commencement of their adventure.

“Egg Island” attempts at being a non-linear Murakami (was there ever a linear version of the man), takes a shot at being a poor man’s Jack Kerouac, while all along trying its best to sound and read like a benign impersonation of Mark Twain. In a futile bid to be all of these, it unfortunately ends up being none of them. Colt with his incessant chattering (most of which consist of mouthing corny lines), and an almost condescending demeanour, ends up being an absolute irritant. There comes a point in the book where you want to avoid him with the same enthusiasm that a cockroach takes to a repellant. Julia, even though the protagonist in the tale is more emblematic of vulnerability and uncertainty than an epitome of optimism and confidence.

The phalanx of characters who waft in and out of the book are more interlopers in a junkie rave – where entries and exits are neither manned nor managed - than surreptitious gatecrashers hoping to steal a meal at a wedding. At one point in time, Julia somehow manages to wriggle herself away from Colt and his car, only to end up in the house of a family of Germans where every woman puts Rapunzel to utter disdain. The combined length of their hair, in all probability, is longer than the safety lines that are required to be laid while traversing to the tip of Mount Everest, and back. Add a beheaded fowl (or was it a hen?) and a dead mouse to the mix, you almost feel yourself calling out for Colt. A call which unfortunately the man heeds in a jiffy.

There are however some redeeming passages that reinforce the need for, and the indispensable relevance of a symbiotic relationship between man and Mother Nature. A spontaneous combustion of delight which Colt and Julia feel at the sight of a small turtle abutting a clear stream, for example, conveys to the reader the pristine and giving attribute of nature. Colt unsurprisingly, and abruptly, cuts short the pleasure of the reader by engaging the turtle in an unwarranted and out of kilter monologue. If only turtles could demand aspirin!

(“Egg Island” by Sara Flemington is published by Dundurn Press and will be available for sale from the 9th of August 2022)

Thank you, Net Galley for the Advance Reviewer Copy!

I enjoyed this book. There is great character development. A young girl leaves home in search of her father, whom she believes in on Egg Island. As she meets different people and finds herself in unusual circumstances, you can see her growth. The ending is a surprise.