Synopsis
A suspenseful YA graphic novel thriller where the winter chill isn’t the only thing that bites!
In the dead of winter, blood runs cold!
Teen influencers Jen and Dante post wild videos of themselves doing extreme sports. But when they jump out of a helicopter to ski down a mountain, the stunt goes way wrong. Dante’s ankle gets slashed, and the helicopter crew — who were supposed to be waiting at the bottom of the mountain — are nowhere to be found. As the confused teens seek answers from some locals, they all find themselves flesh-to-fang, trapped in an isolated cabin surrounded by frost vampires!
Their only hope for survival is to make it to sunrise…
Review
Thanks to Scholastic for the physical ARC! This is my first outing with the Graphix line outside of the Goosebumps ones. I love this cover.
The opening starts with a snowy road, a bus full of kids, and no cell service. After a crash, they are stuck in the freezing storm with little hope of getting help. A cabin in the distance seems like the best option for getting out of the elements. Too bad the knee deep snow is in their way, and too bad they’re not alone. Then, internet sibling sensations, Jen and Dante arrive, determined to get their daily stunt video shot in full. After racing down the mountain, and finding their helicopter empty, what seems like a prank gone wrong just might turn out to be more than they bargained for.
The opening chapter is a fantastic start. The snow storm, the lack of service, then the blown tire. The someone or something under the snow is so super creepy. I did find myself wondering, like with swimming underwater where it’s displaced, wouldn’t the movement beneath the deep snow move or even collapse what’s stacked above, but I don’t need all the answers. It’s a great hook. It really establishes that something’s wrong in record time.
I thought the art itself was fantastic. It meshes black and white with splashes of blue and grey hues to give more of a sense of depth and lighting. I particularly enjoyed the blood still being bright red though, it reminded me of The Walking Dead, especially the spinoff TWD: The Alien, which really goes all out on the red blood (and I read that one most recently). I also thought the swirling of the snow, which did in fact end of looking almost like a whirlpool, was a neat way to show off all the movement too.
The ending was equal parts silly, surprising, and absolutely rad. I mean, snow vampires? Frost vampires that are locked in a specific region that they can’t escape from? A region that just so happens to have the cabin built right on it? And Jen, Dante, and their team just so happen to end up there when it’s getting awfully dark. Their only way to survive is to make it through the night. Even with unexpected help, the vampires have been trying to infiltrate the cabin for hours … and they are getting bolder.
Put your believability aside, the author is telling you the frost vampires are there, are real. The longer you take to believe, the more of a chance they have to get inside. Sit back and enjoy this intense little YA winter thriller that brought to mind The Thing meets 30 Days of Night if the casts were teenagers.
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