Review: MacGyver's little sister..2.5 stars
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 06 8, 2012
Stranded did and didn't work for me. The idea behind the story was good. Black woman White man are stranded on a deserted Island, they are forced to work together to survive. I just kept thinking of all the steamy and scary scenarios they could get into as I started this book, only to be slightly disappointed when I discovered the book was written in 1st person narrative with a change up in the POV between the H/h.... ok no biggie I got over it. I still thought this was a good story until the book started to read like entries in a personal diary.I was looking for a fluid story that allowed the reader to experience the building of a romantic relationship that was forged during an extremely difficult and harrowing time for Ocean and Marshall. I never felt the sexual attraction between the two, or the build up of sexual tension. One moment they are going about their daily task on the island when out of the blue Marshall starts to masturbate while watching Ocean. It felt like he was horny and any woman would've  served his purpose to get off.  Missing were the scenes of  when he starts to see her as more than the person he is stranded with, or the scenes that made them realize they were in love with one another. I got the feeling Marshall felt a lot of gratitude toward Ocean because of her MacGyver' skills in creating something out of nothing, she made soap, medicine, dishes, floor mats and lobster cages. and she could turn out perfect meals cooked over an open flame. This chick was amazing, she was not your typical damsel in distress, but I liked her, so what made her fall in love with Marshall? Again it felt more like gratitude instead of love, he made hammocks and a hut the size of a garage,built fires and made weapons, he was no slouch. Which is a blessing, if you're going to be stranded you want to be with someone handy. But come on, this is a romance so I wanted to experience the relationship interaction between the H/h dealing with personality conflicts, and the progression of them moving from friends due to extreme circumstances to lovers for life. I don't want to be told this happened I want the author to create the feeling and set the tone of 2 people falling in love through her writing.But what absolutely killed this IR for me was the use of an old stereotype ....."The penis and scrotum of a white man was completely different from a black man.....mechanically they were the same...but looked completely different."On what planet is this possible, I'm not an expert on penises but I have seen a few in my lifetime of both races and can report there is no difference except the usual, short, long, thin, thick, curve left or right, etc and I've only seen 2 different shapes of the scrotum, you get the picture.  Why go there, it totally took me out of the story and made me not take this book as seriously as it was intended. I stopped reading IR years ago  due to the abundant use of stereotypes.  I give this book 2.5 stars for the theme.