Whiteout: 10 (Red Eye)

Whiteout is best read in the depths of Winter, preferably when it’s snowing for extra atmosphere.Whiteout delivered to my Kindle on Christmas Day, just in time to snuggle up and read by the Christmas tree. I devoured this book from page one.Whiteout centres around a group of classmates on a school skiing trip, who end up stuck in a lodge in the middle of a deadly, blizzard. The townsfolk abandon the town, alerting the reader to the fact that the group are in serious danger.The blizzard is not the only danger that they face when a bloodthirsty group of fanged monsters attack the lodge, with gory consequences.The Whiteout vamps are not the sparkly, romantic types. They are terrifying monsters with no conscience. It is fantastic that vampires have been brought back into popular fiction with a real bite. They were maybe the best part of this book for me, I could vividly imagine all their horrendous features.I also loved the characters. The author plays on all the popular tropes here – The Nerd, The Jock, The Beautiful Spoiled Princess, The Outcast and The Bully all play their parts. The author terrorises them, pulling and pushing them out of their comfort zones. The writer does a great job of making the reader part of group as they struggle to survive the whiteout in Kandgellan.The central character of the book is Charlie, a snowboarding, adrenaline junkie with a hidden past. He is mysterious and rumoured to be a juvenile delinquent. Added to the group of students is local girl, Hanna. Hanna is feisty and doesn’t suffer fools gladly, especially not spoiled princess Tara.I’m slow to divulge any more as I want you to the book yourself, but the teenagers struggle with the usual every day issues, while trying to stay alive.I’m a big fan of Red Eye’s books, such as Frozen Charlotte and Charlotte Says, and Whiteout is an excellent addition to the collection.To conclude, Whiteout is fantastic and bloody. It contains genuinely terrifying scenes and compelling characters and is a teen horror that both teenagers and adults will love.

I really enjoyed the story I love the setting somewhere that is usually a safe haven from the cold weather quickly feels empty and vulnerable when shit hits the fan! Things go fast and I love that it doesn’t take forever for people to start dying it’s also smart how the story goes! There is a unlikeable person but it makes sense when that person is a selfish upper class sheltered girl who up until recently has had everything handed to her and is still salty about losing her social standing/money! The main cast is interested I love the sudden cut to the smaller group and how their path ends really sticks with you. The true antagonist is interesting and so hatable it’s excellent!

I used to read Goosebumps when I was younger, but haven't read much horror at all since then. However, I love reading about vampires in any form so I was really excited to get my hands on this. Particularly since the YA genre seems to have avoided vampires for several years...Told in 3rd person, the novel follows a group of students on a school skiiing trip. When a blizzard hits the mountain and the 6th formers find themselves trapped, they realise their problems are only just beginning. As one by one the students disappear, the dwindling survivors must choose between facing a blizzard or facing the creatures that prowl around in it at night.It's almost a given in horror novels that tragic main character has tragic backstory, and certainly in WHITEOUT, most of the characters have tragic backstories, but I enjoyed reading them very much! They were slowly revealed and at interesting points in the book, juxtaposing the action. I was quite happy to follow Charlie, Hanna, Nico and Tara along. They were all diverse enough that I got to grips with whose point of view I was reading from quickly, and I particularly liked Tara's point of view. She was a grade A cow and I loved her pages!I also really liked the setting and the additional drama the snow caused. It all blended in perfectly with the vampires and the townsfolk who all disappeared at the first sniff of the blizzard. There was a good underlying mystery to it all, and I was happy to watch it unfurl.If you're looking for a book with a cool setting, good cast and don't mind a bit of gore, I heartily recommend this one.

Getting snowed in will never be the same again! Whilst clearly aimed at the teen fiction market, there is so much to admire about this breathless, debut novel from Gabriel Dylan, a man who clearly knows his black runs from his red ones. It is a claustrophobic tale however, drenched in red, most of it running freely down the frozen slopes as a beautifully gory and haunting story unfolds. There is a filmic quality to the narrative which although not holding your attention with its adherence to lyrical prose, nevertheless entwines its glacial fingers around you and captivates until it’s eerie denouement deep in the mountains. The two main protagonists are really well drawn and there are more than passing nods to Salem’s Lot, The Passage and The Walking Dead especially with its siege quality. Hanna in particular, is a driven, believable centrepoint to the action, which once afoot, sinks its teeth into the reader relentlessly. A great yarn for a cold winters evening, Dylan has created a monstrous presence that stays with you long after the final ski lift has departed into the dusk. Highly recommended for teens and adults alike, it will chill you to your core.

I've certainly stayed in a number of hotels that were tired and neglected. The sorts of place where imagination runs riot. I've also supervised groups of students in such places. So to read a novel that included both key elements was irresistible!I have to say that Dylan's observations of teenagers is well-drawn and his experiences drawn from teaching this age group are very apparent underpinned with a strong sense of empathy. Dylan manages to evoke the characters' external strength of character which too often mask internal insecurities. Characters are developed well and one quickly develops a relationship with them; recognising the vulnerability behind the bravado. And there's a twist that sets us up perfectly for a sequel (please Gabriel).