The Troop was glowingly reviewed here on GoodReads and here and there in other lists, so I thought I'd give it a go.

When all was said and done, and I turned the final page, I had a conundrum regarding my feelings for the story.

In its simplest terms, The Troop is about a group of young teen scouts and their Scoutmaster on an uninhabited island in Canada encountering a stranger with a problem.

How the Scoutmaster deals with the problem in his initial steps in that encounter is where I had difficulty maintaining the suspense of disbelief. It's not a particularly long part of the book, but in the end, I just went with it.

The ride afterwards was more engrossing since the characters behaved more in a manner consistent with their reality.

That initial part bothered me so much that I really wanted to rate this at 3.5, but it's not an option on GoodReads.
So if you find yourself reading this wondering about the three stars, now you know.

I'm willing to read another book by the author, but I may check the reviews more thoroughly ahead of that time.