Our online book club met this week to discuss The stranger in the lifeboat by Mitch Albom
As the book starts, 10 people find themselves adrift in a lifeboat during a storm, having survived a luxury yacht explosion. The yacht is owned by billionaire Jason Lambert and he had invited some of the richest and most powerful people on this cruise. The 10 survivors are a mixed bag of famous people and staff from the boat, along with 2 people no one recognize—a mute young girl and a man who claims to be the Lord.
The book is broken into three parts, sea, land and news. Crew member Benji, is the narrator of the sea portion (which is actually what he is writing in a journal he keeps the whole time.) Land is the story line on the island of Montserrat where the empty life boat shows up 1 year after the yacht sank (with the journal intact), and news is the news coverage of the yacht sinking and stories about famous people on the boat.
The book was an ok read but left a lot of unanswered questions and some fairly glaring omissions. Why did no one go search for the wreckage of the yacht until the discovery of the lifeboat 1 year later? How did Dobby know to show up at Montserrat looking for Benji? Why were no other family members coming? Could a person seriously survive 1 year on a raft in the middle of the ocean by himself? Could whales cause a boat to explode?
When “the Lord” appears on the boat as a young man, he says he can save them only if everyone on the lifeboat believes “I am who I say I am.” That doesn’t happen, and one by one all the life boat passengers begin to die, until only the little girl and Benji are left. Why is he the only one saved? Why couldn’t the Lord save just the believers? Towards the end, we find out that the man posing as the Lord is supposedly only an angel or representative of the real Lord who is then the little girl. Strange.
It did lead to a lot of discussion
One member felt it was a good story, but didn’t have much meaning. Some liked it better than others, but overall, it got a 3.15 rating. Would I recommend you read it, probably not. Others in our group might recommend it. For me, the only redeeming quality was that the police Sargent Jarty LeFleur, a policeman on the island who found the journal and read it, was saved. After reading the journal, he could finally put the death of his young daughter in perspective and begin to live again.
While I don't always love what we read in book club, I do love being in book clubs. I know what kind of books I enjoy reading, and I read a lot of them--right now I am hooked on CJ Box, Ann Cleeves, Deborah Crombie and Adrian McKinty. But discussing the same book with friends can bring new perspectives. And I get out of my comfort zone of mysteries.
If you read this one, what did you think? What are you reading?