Despite the author's claim to have been reading about Hawaii before writing this book, the place she describes in the story is hardly Hawaiian. In fact, it's as if the author has never seen a real coconut, been to Hawaii, or frankly, flipped through a travel brochure. There should be some truth in a story like this, otherwise, reading the book is just an exercise. You, yes, you, could have written this book in 3 hours.
I agree with the reviewer who pointed out the stereotypes used to describe the Hawaiians. Happy, dancing, friendly, open faces...It was silly and lazy on the author's part. And how many ancient Hawaiians were named Boka? The letter B was not used for Hawaiian words.