Dr. Franklin’s Island by Ann Halam

Ok, here’s the set up: so Semirah Garson is one of fifty teenage British Young Conservationists who have won the opportunity to study for 3 weeks in Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, however, on their flight from Miami, their plane unexpectedly crash lands in the ocean. Out of the other passengers on the plane, only Semi, and two other prizewinners named Miranda Fallow and Arnie Pullman make it to a seemingly random island not far from where the plane crashes. The trio spends weeks on the beach of the island until one day Arnie goes missing. And when Semi and Miranda decide to search for him, they discover that not only are they not alone on the island, but the man who runs the research facility there, Dr. Franklin, is a pretty messed up dude with some pretty crazy ideas.

Sounds pretty good so far, right? I’m right there with you! The best part about the beginning of the novel in particular is that it jumps right in with the action – the plane crash, for example, happens within the first five pages of the book. And while it does tend to drag in places, the overall pacing of the book was pretty spectacular.

Photo source: http://www.birdsofeden.co.za/grey-crowned-crane_article_op_view_id_190

So back to the story: after being captured by Dr. Franklin’s men and taken into the facility, the girls quickly learn from Dr. Franklin and his assistant, Dr. Skinner, that not only has Dr. Franklin known that the girls and Arnie had been on the island the entire time, but he has been watching them and seeing how they fared. That’s pretty messed up on its own but then things get really strange when Dr. Franklin reveals his master plan: he’s been experimenting with introducing animal DNA into humans to change them into animal/human hybrids and has decided the girls are going to be his next victims/study participants.

Photo source: http://www.pebble.tv/products/stingray/

Graciously(?) Dr. Franklin allows the girls to decide between the two of them which will be turned into a fish and which will be turned into a bird. Semi goes the fish route while Miranda chooses the life of a bird. And that’s where things start to get weird…ok, they were already weird before that…but weirder!

This book is one of my rapidly dwindling collection of books chosen from the Scholastic Warehouse where I also picked up Paperquake the second book in my stack. What drew me to this book was the blurb on the back that didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Just from those few sentences, I knew that the girls were going to be plane-wrecked, found by a mad scientist and then transformed, and I was 100% in! That little blurb gave me some insight into not only what the plot of the book was going to be, but that the book was not going to pull any punches, and I was not disappointed.

Photo source: http://www.usseek.com/images/anaconda/9

The book also relates quite nicely to the previous book in my collection Horns. In both books, snakes play central roles in revealing plot points. In Horns, snakes always seemed to show up at significant points in the main character, Ig’s, life but none more significant than after his horns begin to grow in, and he notices snakes following him everywhere and eventually responding to his commands.

In Dr. Franklin’s Island, a snake first appears while the trio of castaways are on the beach together. Semi is napping in their little pieced-together shelter when Miranda and Arnie return from an expedition. When Miranda goes in to check on Semi, she sees a snake and runs out of the shelter terrified and angry that Semi didn’t warn her of the danger. This event worked to not only reveal to the other two characters that Semi is really nearsighted and since having lost her contacts and glasses in the crash has had only limited sight which the other two were unaware of. This scene also works to make Miranda a more well rounded character since prior to this event she has been portrayed as the natural leader of the group, stoic and resourceful. After the snake situation we learn that Miranda is deathly afraid of snakes which plays right into a major plot point later in the novel when it is revealed that Arnie, who the girls assumed was dead, has been turned into a giant snake/boy himself. Just the mere image of that seriously still makes me shudder.

Overall I give Dr. Franklin’s Island by Ann Halam four books out of a possible five: one each for ingenious plot, pacing, character development and boldness to heavily insert real science fiction into a YA novel. The novel did lose a book for me when during a brief time in the later third of the novel Semi, the book’s narrator, keeps talking about the horrors that she and Miranda have seen and suffered at the hands of Dr. Franklin when none of these horrors are really spelled out. I mean, I get it, you used to be a girl and now you are a fish, but like, what did that feel like? Some more even gruesome details would have been appreciated.