I have a sweet spot for books, tv shows, and movies that depict groups of people competing and eliminating each other in challenges based on social skills, physical ability, and mental acuity. Hunger Games, Survivor, The Genius, Series 7, Battle Royale... all of that. I love it! I especially love Survivor, which I've watched since the first season. Lessons I've learned from watching Survivor have actually influenced the way I approach work; namely, the importance of empathy, emotional intelligence, recognizing differing agendas, and building a team while respecting individual perspectives. When I look at tv on the whole, Survivor should be a 3 star show - it is highly enjoyable yet also often corny and predictable and full of questionable choices made by the producers and host. But it is a 4 star show to me because its subject is something that I find completely fascinating.New Year Island has a lot of flaws too. Gaps in logic; some risible melodrama and rote dialogue; an ending that is bizarrely over-the-top. [per Survivor edgic: OTTN5] Normally I'd rate this 3 stars for being a fun excursion (and 3 stars is a positive rating, for me at least). But because I connected quickly and deeply with its themes, this is a 4 star book for me. Plus it is fucking exciting! I stayed up all night to read the remaining 9/10ths - and this is over 700 pages. I have staying power for these kinds of books., a sex therapist from Iowa, won Survivor 25: Philippines - an excellent season. Her high level of emotional intelligence and ability to read a room allowed her to correctly assess her fellow contestants' emotional states and to position herself as simultaneously competitive, trustworthy, and non-threatening., a bridal shop owner from Texas, won Survivor 24: One World - a terrible season. Her ability to win physical challenges was impressive; even more impressive was her skill at empathizing with both allies and competition. That empathy allowed her to say just the right things at just the right times, gaining trust from everyone due to her ability to understand everyone's motivations, triggers, and goals.New Year Island posits that empathy and emotional intelligence are key to being a survivor: that ability to understand others and to recognize their emotions and motivations, even if they are the competition or a threat. The novel's protagonist is an executive at Pixar; throughout the book we see her continually empathize with her competition and find ways to understand their motivations and thought processes. Even if they do things that shock or upset her, she automatically tries to understand and often justify their actions by putting herself in their shoes and trying to imagine their personal context. An unusual but rather perfect protagonist for this sort of thriller., a corporate consultant from Rhode Island, won Survivor Borneo - the first season of the series. Richard immediately recognized that "Survivor" was a game and not just a tropical excursion or an exercise in living off of the land. Correctly reading the underlying agenda of the show itself, he helped form Survivor's first alliance, and together they decimated their naive, idealistic competition., a sports talk show host from Kansas, won Survivor 11: Guatemala - an underrated season. She correctly read the agenda of the show's producers and editors, and how their goals could impact her game. So she chose to play her own game by not telling them about her strategies, knowing that production's knowledge of her tactics could influence questions posed by the show's host - and which could in turn reveal her strategy to her fellow players.Two of New Year Island's most compelling characters are its villain and the object of that villain's wrath. Both are, in their own special ways, psychopaths. The villain is a perfect representation of reality tv's often toxic tendency to vilify its cast members over the very traits for which they have been cast - to create edits that often punish participants for being themselves. The villain's target is another perfect representation - that of the player who is all too aware of editing, how narratives and personas can be constructed, and so is able to hide their true motivations and goals behind a persona and narrative that they have created themselves., an advertising executive from California, won Survivor 14: Fiji - a divisive season. He sailed to an easy win with a team he had built himself - a group of disparate players who, under Earl's calm leadership, united against a group of physically dominating alpha males., a legal consultant from New York, won Survivor 13: Cook Islands - a satisfying but often tedious season. Set back by turncoat teammates, he used their betrayal to rally his remaining teammates as underdogs. Both players clearly understood that despite there only being one winner of the game, forming a team was necessary to get to that win. Just as importantly, they realized that forging a very specific sort of group identity - the underestimated, undervalued underdogs - was both an empowering and an irresistible way to bring people together in order to accomplish a common goal.New Year Island never forgets the importance of a team, even though the rules of its own game also mean there is only one winner. Our heroine is a master at team-building and it was fascinating watching her create her team and then connect with them individually, on a personal level, while moving them all towards a common goal. And each of the 10 contestants are given their fair share of coverage by the author, their moments to shine (or to horrify); although Camilla is a very sympathetic protagonist through whom we view the unfolding events, Draker doesn't stint on any of the other characters. They are each given memorable personalities, moments in the spotlight, and intriguing backstories; eventually they are turned into what most readers want: underdogs fighting against an unfair system., a cop from New Jersey, won Survivor 28: Cagayan - an impressively unpredictable season. He played one of the most nimble yet brazen games in the history of Survivor, full of narrow escapes and outrageous shenanigans and shifts in alliances and thrilling blindsides., a secretary from Washington, is the only two-time winner - in Survivor 7: Pearl Islands (best season of the show) and Survivor 20: Heroes vs. Villains (second best). Her strategy was much more straightforward: be yourself... don't overthink it... vote out anyone who isn't Sandra... just make it to the end and tell the jury what they want to hear so you can get their vote. She's my favorite Survivor.New Year Island is my favorite sort of page-turning thriller: exciting and unpredictable, a narrative that twists and turns, characters that pop off of the page, a story that has equal amounts of touchy-feely empathy and ruthless competition. It was exactly what I wanted it to be.