46 pages • 1 hour read
Natasha PrestonThe Island
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Paisley paces nervously around the small room, chewing her nails. Camilla hears a noise on the radio—it’s Reeve, groaning and asking for help. Paisley says that she can’t leave him alone and resolves to try to help him. Camilla gives her a hammer from the first-aid kit for a weapon. Terrified but determined, Paisley runs into the park.
Outside, the storm is relentless and makes it hard to see. Paisley calls Reeve’s name and runs, looking for him. She crouches in a bumper car ride to hide and sees Robert walking across from her. She realizes that he saw her and is looking for her. She takes shelter in the carousel, but Robert grabs her foot, pulling her toward him. She kicks Robert in the knee and runs away, calling out for Reeve. He calls back, telling her to run, but she follows his voice. She is worried that he is hurt and doesn’t want to leave him.
In the rain, she is relieved to run into Liam, who hugs her. She tells him Robert is there, and the two of them look for Reeve. They also hear Gibson and Malcolm calling in the distance but can’t find them. They stumble onto Reeve, who is bleeding from a head wound. He tells them he just woke up. Gibson and Malcolm also find the little group, and they hurry back to the shelter to join Camilla, Harper, and Ava.
Inside, they dress Reeve’s wounds and try to figure out what could be happening. Gibson begins to recap his actions, and Paisley realizes that he, Liam, and Malcolm split up before the lights went out, which means any of them could have hurt Reeve or murdered James.
Chapter 16 Summary
After recounting the last hour or so, Paisley realizes that she can’t be certain of any of the men’s whereabouts since they were all alone, looking for her. Harper says that their plan should be to find and destroy the cell phone jammer so that they can communicate with the mainland. Malcolm suggests using a smaller boat to escape, but Gibson shoots him down and tells him that would be suicide in this weather. The discussion is interrupted when Reeve sags, almost passing out. Malcolm and Camilla decide to go get water for him, worried that he has a concussion.
Paisley tells the remaining group her theory that the killer is Robert, Camilla’s son. She explains what she and Reeve found in the employee files but doesn’t tell anyone about Reeve’s criminal history, to his relief. She believes that Reeve couldn’t be faking his injury and that he is innocent. Gibson and Reeve decide that the group needs to move and hide from Camilla and Malcolm, since they can’t be sure now that they aren’t involved due to Camilla’s connection to Robert. Gibson suggests that they hide in the restaurant, The Black Tulip, which has windows and will give them a good place to hide and watch for danger.
Chapter 17 Summary
They sneak across the park and make it into the restaurant. The storm has faded out, leaving only the dawn sky. Gibson explains that the sun will hide them during the day due to window glare, but that until then, they should hide in the kitchen. They make sandwiches and eat and decide to go search for the jammer when it’s lighter outside. Ava is afraid but volunteers to stay and be the lookout. Gibson and Reeve go to find another radio so that everyone can communicate.
While they are gone, Liam asks Paisley if she trusts Reeve. She has doubts but says aloud that she thinks he is innocent. Eventually, they decide that Gibson and Reeve could be planning this to hurt Malcolm, and that no one should be alone with them. Gibson and Reeve return in a panic, saying someone is outside. They all see a figure in black walking past the hotel but can’t make out any identifying features. Paisley points out that it could be a woman, statistically. The group splits in two to search the park, leaving Ava as a lookout with a radio.
Chapter 18 Summary
As they explore the park to find the jammer, Paisley asks Gibson if he would recognize Robert. He tells her no, and she brings up his shared past with Reeve. Gibson is shocked that Reeve told her about his time in prison and insists that he is a good person who made a mistake. They see a figure in the distance and hide. It’s the killer, who is guarding the cell phone jammer.
They try to plan, and Gibson wants to distract the killer while Paisley gets the jammer. She argues against it, worrying that Gibson will be hurt. While they talk, Camilla arrives and confronts the killer. They can’t hear what she is saying but are shocked when the killer stabs her repeatedly, leaving her for dead. Paisley is traumatized by the sight, but Gibson hushes her, keeping them out of sight.
Gibson leads her away, trying to go back and warn the others about what they saw.
Chapter 19 Summary
Seeing that Paisley is flagging, Gibson unlocks the haunted house and tries to get her to hide in it. She argues with him, and while they are fighting, Robert spots them. They run into the house to escape, and Paisley soon finds herself separated from Gibson, hiding in the room of serial killer waxworks. She sees Robert standing in the doorway, blocking her exit. As she hides, she thinks about how ironic it is that she is hiding from a real killer in a room full of pretend ones. She manages to hide for a while, but Robert spots her, and she sprints into a different room, where she comes face to face with Kenna’s dead body. She screams in terror and flees, Robert right behind her.
At the exit, she hears Gibson call her name. She responds, but a hand grabs her from behind and drags her back into the darkness.
Chapter 20 Summary
Paisley thinks she is suffocating and can’t break free from Robert’s grasp. She struggles and realizes that his knife is at his thigh. She manages to grab it and slashes him, forcing him to let her go but not seriously hurting him. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees another figure in black pass by, but she is not sure if it’s just her imagination. She makes a dash at Robert but only stabs a haunted house prop before he escapes.
Gibson finds her, and she tells him what happened. Around them, the house powers on, coming to life with spooky sounds and animatronics. The two hold hands and run for the exit. Outside, they try to call Ava and get no answer. Paisley insists that they need to check on Ava, who must have been killed. As they talk, she spots Harper dashing into the hotel, and they follow, reuniting with her. They head to The Black Tulip to look for Ava. Gibson is furious to discover that she is alive and unharmed but was hiding in a cupboard instead of doing her job as a lookout.
The reunited group goes back to destroy the jammer, but it has disappeared, presumably moved by Robert. Suddenly, Robert appears, carrying a sword, and chases them. They run to the service jetty but realize that all the rowboats are gone, meaning that they are now trapped.
Chapters 15-20 Analysis
The earlier sections of the novel hinted at a generational divide between the characters. Malcolm and Camilla seem out of touch with the culture of the younger characters, and Malcolm especially is scornful of social media, though not above using it for his own ends. When the violence begins, the two adults are increasingly out of their depth, and Paisley is unimpressed with Malcolm’s lack of leadership skills. She thinks, “Malcolm hasn’t been particularly helpful so far and he’s let us lead on figuring this thing out. Now he wants to play the hero” (169). He is more interested in “damage control” with the imagined future press than he is with doing anything useful (170). In this section, the continued incompetence of Malcolm and suspicion of Camilla for being Robert’s mother leads the younger group to separate from the older to survive. This plot turn is characteristic of a YA thriller, since the genre often sidelines adults to focus on the experiences of a younger audience.
Throughout the novel, cell phones appear as a motif representing dependence on social media. In these chapters, the younger characters begin to figure out how to survive without the digital tools they are so accustomed to. They are replaced by older technology, like radios. Paisley humorously notes their discomfort with these tools when she and the others gather around a crackling radio: “We all look at the radio as if we’re FaceTiming” (151). As the section continues, Paisley and the other teens continue to adapt and become better at figuring out ways to survive without their usual tools.
The body count rises in this section, and Preston uses a variety of techniques to intensify the suspense and fear her characters are facing. One technique is having Paisley find Kenna’s body. Kenna is a completely static background character. She has no dialogue, and what readers know about her comes from brief references from other characters. However, Preston uses vivid imagery and symbolism to build a sense of horror at her death. Paisley sees her “lying behind the door, in the room with all the ghosts. Her throat has been slit. A halo of blood lies under her head” (207). The halo is a symbol of innocence and emphasizes Kenna’s gentle and kind nature. However, this halo is one of blood, signifying the death of innocence. Kenna is killed in the haunted house, and she is a real death in a room full of fake ghosts. This moment of strong imagery allows Preston to evoke sympathy for a character whom readers did not know well. Kenna’s death also shows how heartless the killer is. If he will kill a kind young mother who never harmed anyone, the narrative prompts the question of who else might be in danger.
