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A review by kristineisreading
Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this. I didn’t not like it. But I also didn’t really get into it. I’m not even really sure why so I’m going to try to lay this out…
+/- The premise is interesting (isolation, a stranded group of strangers, a killer in their midst), but it’s been done before and done better (Agatha Christie comes to mind).
+ I didn’t guess the ending.
- …but I didn’t really get into it enough to try.
- None of the characters had much depth. They were all “the DJ,” “the dispatcher,” “the whatever.” And that’s about as far as it went.
- Christa was not a very interesting narrator. She spends the first half of the book alluding to a trauma but I wasn’t very curious about what it was.
+ Christa’s traumatic event actually was traumatic, and it was not a stereotypical trauma either.
- Christa should have been in therapy to move on from it, considering it’s been two years.
- The premise and the gore should have been horrifying, but I just couldn’t get invested enough for it to affect me.
+ There was plenty of gore and horror, and when I really stop to think about how it would be in that situation, well, I’d be terrified.
+ The plot is faced paced and every page serves to move it along.
+/- I finished this in one slow day at work and a few hours of staying up past bedtime. Good because it kept my interest, bad because a nearly 400 page book should give me enough depth to take a few days.
- The setting – freezing cold, snow and more snow, isolation, a tiny claustrophobic cabin – should have been extremely atmospheric, but I couldn’t quite get there with that either.
+ I liked how Christa never made assumptions and was willing to consider all possibilities. She suspected everyone and was slow to trust (as you should be in such a situation).
- 4 months and you’re ready to get married? Ugh. So much for being slow to trust. You can’t really know someone in 4 months…
So that’s 7 pluses and 9 minuses. Like I said, mixed feelings. Middle-of-the-road 3 stars it is.
+/- The premise is interesting (isolation, a stranded group of strangers, a killer in their midst), but it’s been done before and done better (Agatha Christie comes to mind).
+ I didn’t guess the ending.
- …but I didn’t really get into it enough to try.
- None of the characters had much depth. They were all “the DJ,” “the dispatcher,” “the whatever.” And that’s about as far as it went.
- Christa was not a very interesting narrator. She spends the first half of the book alluding to a trauma but I wasn’t very curious about what it was.
+ Christa’s traumatic event actually was traumatic, and it was not a stereotypical trauma either.
- Christa should have been in therapy to move on from it, considering it’s been two years.
- The premise and the gore should have been horrifying, but I just couldn’t get invested enough for it to affect me.
+ There was plenty of gore and horror, and when I really stop to think about how it would be in that situation, well, I’d be terrified.
+ The plot is faced paced and every page serves to move it along.
+/- I finished this in one slow day at work and a few hours of staying up past bedtime. Good because it kept my interest, bad because a nearly 400 page book should give me enough depth to take a few days.
- The setting – freezing cold, snow and more snow, isolation, a tiny claustrophobic cabin – should have been extremely atmospheric, but I couldn’t quite get there with that either.
+ I liked how Christa never made assumptions and was willing to consider all possibilities. She suspected everyone and was slow to trust (as you should be in such a situation).
- 4 months and you’re ready to get married? Ugh. So much for being slow to trust. You can’t really know someone in 4 months…
So that’s 7 pluses and 9 minuses. Like I said, mixed feelings. Middle-of-the-road 3 stars it is.