Whiteout (Red Eye) by Gabriel Dylan
| Whiteout (Red Eye) by Gabriel Dylan | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Jill Murphy
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| Summary: Fast-paced, gruesome horror with a high body count set high up in the desolate, snowy mountains. Genuinely scary with a couple of great central characters. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 384 | Date: January 2019 |
| Publisher: Stripes | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1788950725 | |
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Are you up for a sleepless night or two? If so, read on!
Charlie is on a school trip, skiing in the Austrian mountains. He's not having much fun. A miserable home life has given Charlie a bad attitude reputation and he's not a popular kid. Charlie tends to go off by himself - not always a safe thing to do if you're staying in a ski resort - and this is what brings him into contact with one of the ski guides, Hanna. Hanna herself doesn't have the happiest backstory and this forms a connection between them.
Then, a storm blows in, the village's inhabitants leave, and in the morning blood is found. Something is not quite right....
... and that night, the students are attacked. Who will make it out alive?
I liked this story. A lot. It's thought through well and it rattles along at a fearful pace. A relatively sedate introduction explodes into action very suddenly and from that moment, the action sequences come thick and fast. Charlie has to think on his feet and the book does a great job of following his thought processes without ever losing momentum. The isolation of the desolate and icy mountain environment comes through very strongly and the antagonists (I'm saying no more than that about them!) are described vividly. In terms of keep-you-up-at-night horror, Whiteout does a brilliant job and it's an impressive debut by Gabriel Dylan. And I loved the twist at the end - hopefully, it means we can expect more from this world.
It's not perfect. I'd have liked the supporting cast to have been drawn with a bit more depth, despite the high body count, and some of it felt just a tad too video game-esque for my taste. But these are nitpicks. Fans of horror will thoroughly enjoy this mountainous outing and it's a great inclusion on Stripes's impressive Red Eye list. If you're the kind of horror reader who enjoys as many jump-out-of-your-skin moments as possible and who likes the combination of a creepy isolated environment with a page-turning drive forward, Whiteout is the book for you. It's an impressive debut from Gabriel Dylan and I'll be looking forward to his next book.
Recommended!
This Red Eye series from Stripes is turning out to be quite something. If you enjoy a good horror story and Whiteout appeals, you could also check out Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell, another brilliant but terrifying Red Eye story. If scary snowy environments are your thing, try Dark Matter by Michelle Paver, which is deliciously creepy.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Whiteout (Red Eye) by Gabriel Dylan at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Whiteout (Red Eye) by Gabriel Dylan at Amazon.com.
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