I think I fell in love with the island more than the plot. The whole opposite kind of families stranded on an island is an interesting setting and you can expect a lot of family drama. I liked the queer romance part and the author clearly how she can excel in it with her previous book but the pace was slow throughout which made me skim through quite a bit. It has a really good mix of characters and each character brings in varied personality to the book.

🔊Song Pairing: Land Down Under - Chachi, Paige

💭What I thought would happen:

Love island romance. Nothing says love like the scent of coconut body oil and skinny dipping in the ocean…yeahhh not quite right

📖What actually happens:

The Kelly’s and the Lee’s are about to embark on a grand family vacation to a remote island where very few have access due to the preservation of the land. Soon after they arrive a tsunami takes out the entire island leaving everyone there stranded until help can come (6 weeks time).

Amelia Kelly is dealing with being apart from her soon to be fiancé but also can’t seem to peel her eyes from Liss, the caretaker of the island. Parker Lee and Matty Kelly are newlyweds who have decided to leave their busy fabulous lives in NYC for Australia (where the Kelly’s reside). Jules and Glen Kelly have split but are waiting to tell their daughters but must share a bed to keep up with the façade. Randall and Ludmila Lee just aren't certain about their new in-laws.

🗯Thoughts:

Where do I start…I was expecting a romance…then ended up being a natural disaster and I thought okay cool. Love an unexpected twist. However, when everyone stuck on the island is a self-centred ass hat (okkk not Randall, Glen or Liss but they were frightfully dull) just makes for a mediocre read at best.

At 40% I just wanted it over. I skimmed a lot
of the latter half of the book just to be rid of it. I truly wanted to like it. I LOVED the LGBTQ+ representation throughout the book.

I will say that as I am currently writing this review I have Buffy the Vampire Slayer on (repeatedly referenced in the book) and I’d never seen it before so that was kind of a fun takeaway from the book!

Overall, will never revisit this book but I think would make a great show or movie (would totally watch)

This books focuses on two families who become stranded on an Australian island after a volcano erupts. The book focuses on themes of descriptive imagery of the island, history of the indigenous people, family drama, self growth for multiple characters, some spice, and elements of queen romance. The setting of this book makes it a perfect summer read! I was hooked by the vivid descriptions of this Australian island setting, and the author's writing style made me feel as if I was stranded on the island with the Kelly family. Although, I found it hard to relate to the characters, mainly because there were so many of them to keep track of, but they each were on a similar journey of trying to find their sense of self. I'll be honest, parts of this books seemed to lag for me, but I enjoyed the queer romance story line, making this a perfect read for #pridemonth!

Thank you to @netgalley and @atria for providing me an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this book and just recently purchased Georgia Clark’s last book. There were parts of this book that I loved move than others but I really enjoyed the way Georgia Clark writes romance books. I liked the plot location and the characters. I will definitely recommend this book to friends for a summer read.

This is my second book from Clark, my first was “it had to be you”. Her style is true to a romcom Love Actually vibe and this one adds in a bit of “the family stone” with in laws and conflicting personalities.

We meet the Kelly family (American) parents are Jules and Glen parents to Matty and Amelia. Then we have the Lee family (Australian) parents are Randall and Ludmila parents of Parker.

Matty and Parker and married and trying for a baby soon while Amelia is looking forward to introducing her family to her new boo. Then a volcano erupts and they are all forced to quarantine for six weeks on a remote Australian island. (This feeling is all too familiar coming off of 2020 quarantines)

I really love the premise and all the relationships. She captured nature and real relationship dynamics from many angles. Her writing style is truly vacation inspiring in this one. Each family brings opposite vibes one is fully in love and the other more tense and stressed. Each can learn from each other and their kids bring them together in a beautiful way.

I did feel it was hard to start and settle into all the storylines right off the bat. There is no slow ramp up just each character starting with where they’re at exactly in that moment. However it is a very fun story and heartfelt writing from Clark.

Thank you to for my ARC

Happy Pub Day to Island Time and thank you to the author, NetGalley, & Atria for the eARC! I felt like this was a great story to start off the summer! Island Time definitely has a lot going on; the story features multiple POVs across the different characters and family members stuck on a remote island together after a natural disaster. At times, the family drama was a little overwhelming to me but I appreciated that the "side characters" had a measure of depth to them and weren't just background noise behind a central romance plot. The setting of the story on this tropical island with Clark's lush descriptions of the wildlife and the scenery was another big highlight of this story for me. Overall, I think Island Time had a lot going on at some points, but was a great summer read to kick of Pride Month!

I wanted to love Island Time and there were definitely parts I really enjoyed. I loved the setting on a remote island in Australia! I don’t read too many books set in Australia so I really enjoyed the location in this book. The book was really well written in this aspect. I also loved all the unique wildlife descriptions in the book. In my opinion, there were way too many characters and the author gave a little backstory on each character. However since there were so many characters, it was hard to remember who was who and I think it took away from the main storyline. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would definitely read more from this author!

Island Time is an ensemble rom-com (think Love Actually or Valentine’s Day) about two very different families who come to a remote Australian island to celebrate their daughters’ marriage. They are only intending to stay for the weekend, however, after a volcano explodes they become trapped together for six weeks.

This was a delightful read. I loved the mix of characters and the family dynamics between them. (The friendship between the two dads was especially endearing). There was romance, humor, and more near-death experiences than one would think based on the bright cover. I highly recommend as a fun, summer read.

Happy pub day to @georgialouclark ! I got completely sucked into the gorgeous island of Mun’dai which is a character onto itself in the glorious romantic prose of Island Time. I enjoyed all of the characters and relationships that populated this very fun, very summery read. If you are on vacation, going on vacation OR just dreaming of doing so like me, ISLAND TIME will get you there 🤭 five stars!

Thanks to @atria @goodreads and @netgalley for the early copies!

Ended up purchasing a copy for myself cause of the amazing pre-order campaign and waiting till I got my physical copy to read but thank you again for the ARC approval.

Sadly this didn’t work for me. Billed as a steamy romance read, this felt entirely too long. I found myself at 25% in wondering where the romance was? All the family characters and dynamics at first seemed like they could be interesting but seemed like they went no where and muddled the story. It became hard to stay focused on any one character.

I think a lot of the characters could have been simplified to give more room for the love story which felt like an after thought more often than not. I’ll look forward to the author’s next book.

Happy Pub Day!
If you love family drama and romantic comedy this is for you! There are so many characters and so many point of views that it made the story so interesting. The descriptions of the islands are amazing such a perfect summer read!

This book was a bit difficult to follow as it had so many POV’s. It was not so fluid as it felt like it was jumping back and forth. There was also a poor taste in the humor as it eluded to rape and other derogatory words. It just was not for me. Thank you NETGALLEY and Atria books for the digital arc.

Amelia is so excited to introduce her boyfriend to her family, and her sisters in laws.. She books a trip to a remote tropical island in Australia.When a nearby volcano erupts, her entire family is stranded on this island for the next six weeks.Both sets of parents are vastly different, and having to make do on the island, proves to be very interesting. Everyone is forced to question what - or who they really want.

________

So, I will admit I went into this book blindly and definitely judged this book based on this cute cover. I assumed this book was going to be a fun rom com set on an island - fruity cocktails and all. Well, I was mistaken. This wasn't a romance novel AT ALL. At best, it was about family drama, with a liiiitle bit of romance thrown in.

There were honestly too many characters...NINE to be exact, and there was too much going on to truly enjoy this book. The chapters were beyond excessive, and some of the situations could have been omitted to make this read more streamlined. The pov jumping made it really hard to follow along and all the characters were meh to me. The only person I could really relate to was Parker's mom. She's Russian, and her backstory (and the use of Russian words) was something I could connect with.

While I enjoyed the lgbtqia+ representation and the Taylor Swift references, this book was unfortunately not for me.

Simone Says Read This if you enjoy:

*tropical islands
*family drama
*forced proximity tropes
*Australian wildlife
*lgbtqia+ rep

Thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review

Rating: Solid Book, 3 stars

Island Time tells the story of the extended Kelly-Lee clan. Matty and Parker are the couple who bring these two families together in marriage, and the women in are in the process of a move to Matty's home country of Australia when the two families take a vacation on Mun'dai, a fictional island off the coast of Queensland. The intent was to bond for several days and then the newlyweds would begin their life in Australia and become parents; however, all that changes when a nearby volcano erupts, stranding them on the island with two other people for 6 weeks until they are able to be retrieved.

This book is pitched as a romance, and I totally understand why. There are lots of relationships forming, breaking, and strengthening in this book, several of them queer. However, I don't know that I would necessarily consider this a romance novel. It felt more like Women's Fiction with a strong romantic element, which is not always my favorite. However, the setting on this was magical and transportive. I thought it was really well depicted. According to the Author's Note, this was the author's labor of love during 2020 when they went back home in their writing and research when the pandemic kept them away from their family back home, and I feel like you can really see that shine through.

We follow each of the 9 characters who are stranded on the island and follow their story and struggle. I think the central focus is on the two Kelly sisters: Matty and Amelia. I felt like the characters that we see the least from were personally the most interesting to me, so that took away from some of my enjoyment. Matty and Amelia were both frustrating characters because they felt like they were in their early twenties, and then some line would remind me that they were in their mid to late thirties. Their mother Jules was also a POV that we got quite often, and it was one that I wouldn't have minded a bit less of because I didn't like her at all.

My favorites were: Parker (Matty's wife), Liss (the island caretaker and Amelia's love interest), Glen (Matty and Amelia's dad), and Ludmila (Parker's mom). I feel like the only one whose perspective we really got a lot of was Liss as the story focused quite a bit on her and Amelia's romance. These were the characters that I felt like had to deal with a lot of the ridiculousness of the other characters and who I wanted to spend more time with.

That was really my main complaint was that some of the characters were just really frustrating and not particularly enjoyable to spend time with. My other big complaint was that this book was way too long. It could have been about 100 pages shorter, and I probably would have enjoyed it more. I just feel like it was trying to take too much on to make it particularly enjoyable. There was a lot happening with a marriage breaking up, a new marriage dealing with some of their first big conflict, and a new relationship trying to get off the ground. I honestly don't understand why some of these characters are putting up with their romantic interests, but that's just me.

Overall, there were things that I enjoyed about this book but the things that I didn't like were big enough that it didn't quite fit in my Enjoyed It category.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Island Time releases June 14, 2022.

🌴Review - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5🌴

🗓Pub Date: June 14, 2022 (today!)

Amelia Kelly books an island vacation in Australia for her family and her sister’s in laws. Thinking this will be a great vacation for her family and her new boyfriend, Amelia has tried to make everything perfect. That is, until a volcano erupts on the island, leaving everyone stranded for at least six weeks. With the travel ban in place, Amelia’s boyfriend is unable to attend their vacation and both families are now stuck together in close proximity, along with two workers on the island (Liss and Jarrah). With two very different families and a multitude of personalities, will this isolation bring them all closer together or will it put some relationships to the test? And what new relationships will form?

I was SO excited for this book and had such high hopes, but it fell really short for me. I felt like the characters were all over the place and it was hard for me to connect with any of them. I felt like Amelia was pretty immature for her age and I found her mom, Jules, to be extremely selfish and needy.

The chapters were also told from multiple POV (I think 9?) and sometimes it was hard to figure out which character was narrating the chapter. I did find that some chapters really seemed to drag on, while others were really short and left some unanswered questions.

I did enjoy the setting of a remote tropical island and reading about different landscape and wildlife. I feel like the author did a great job of describing the island and making you feel like you were there.

Along with A LOT of family drama, there was also a sense of discovering your purpose and finding yourself, which I enjoyed watching transpire.

Overall, I did enjoy certain parts of this book while there were others that I did not. This was the perfect book to start off with in June, as there were multiple queer romance storylines with a little bit of steam. Happy #pridemonth!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy of this book. A family drama that takes place on a beautiful island when natural disaster strikes, what could go wrong?!

I loved that it was so lgbtq+ positive and inclusive. Perfect for pride month! I enjoyed the characters, but I felt that there were too many points of view to follow at times. Once I pinned down who everyone was, it was easier to follow.

Overall this was a charming story & quick to read! I would love to read more by this author. 3.5 stars!

🌴 Book Review 🌴

Island Time by Georgia Clark
1.75/5 ⭐️

I was really excited for this book, but I ended up DNFing 20% in because there were just a few things I couldn’t get past. This definitely may be a case where it’s just me. I was so excited because my guilty pleasure are disaster movies, and this book is about how two families cope with being stuck on an island after a volcano/tsunami but it wasn’t enough to get me past the ick 🥲

What Worked for Me:
- LGBTQIA+ representation
- exposes the concept of checking your privilege

What Didn’t Work For Me (MINOR SPOILERS ‼️‼️):
- Multiple POVs and 3rd Person. There were so many characters and it would switch POVs randomly and I couldn’t even tell who’s POV it was??? It was so confusing 😩
- JULES (one of the moms) gave me the ick from what she says. This includes “I had an indigenous BF once” right after an indigenous man rescues her after the tsunami. Is this necessary?? Also after she gets rescued by said man she says something along the lines of “he didn’t look at my daughter in her skimpy nightgown so he was either a gentleman or gay.” WHAT???
- Ludmila (the other mother) was just so unlikeable and privileged that it got my blood boiling in a way where I wanted to stop reading
- Back to Jules. There’s a scene where she talks about how great a mother she is cause she was so supportive of her daughter coming out. Uhm. You’re supposed to be supportive? You don’t get a gold star for accepting your child. You’re supposed to love and accept them regardless.

I was really excited to read a rom com with lgbtqia+ representation for pride month, but this one just did not hit the mark for me. From the parts I read, I didn’t find much humor or romance and found some dialogue completely unnecessary. That being said I have heard good things about other Georgia Clark books so I definitely want to give her other works a try.

Thank you to @netgalley and @atriabooks for giving me this arc in an exchange for an honest review! Island Time comes out tomorrow, 6/14 🌴

This was a fun read about families stuck on an island. The plot was enjoyable and it was just the right book I needed for my mood!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy to honestly review.

I was lucky enough to get a free eARC of this book from Net Galley. I was excited to try this one. I’ve read It Had To Be You by this author and enjoyed it so I was excited. Unfortunately it missed the mark for me. I always love reading lgbtqia+ friendly books , especially during pride month, and enjoyed the Australian setting, loved the descriptions of the wildlife and learning about the Aboriginal people.

Unfortunately, the bad outweighed the good. Too many points of view, I think there were 9 in total. This was my primary complaint in this authors other book. I felt the disaster was a bit unrealistic and the attempted humor made me cringe.