Book Review - Shiver by Allie Reynolds

Title: Shiver
Series: -
Author: Allie reynolds
 
Description: When Milla is invited to a reunion in the French Alps resort that saw the peak of her snowboarding career, she drops everything to go. While she would rather forget the events of that winter, the invitation comes from Curtis, the one person she can’t seem to let go.
 
The five friends haven’t seen each other for ten years, since the disappearance of the beautiful and enigmatic Saskia. But when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they realize they don’t know who has really gathered them there and how far they will go to find the truth.
 
Review: On a glacier in a beautiful ski resort in the French Alps, an old group of friends meet. They last saw each other ten years ago and broke up at the time after Saskia went missing. After all these years, Saskia is still missing.
 
When the group of friends arrives at the resort, they soon realize that something is not right. Someone has lured them up there and is trying to rekindle the missing persons case and the events of the time. Where has Saskia gone? And who can be trusted?
 
The story is written from the perspective of Milla. Milla is one of the friends in the group at the time. She was the least experiences snowboarder and new to the group. Since the winter in which Saskia disappeared, she has not touched a snowboard. She lives with a sense of guilt, as she feels is to blame for Saskia’s disappearance. This guilt and her personal struggle in who she can and cannot trust from the group of friends is clearly woven into the thoughts and dialogues written by the author.
 
Author Allie Reynolds was a snowboarded herself, which is an important subject in this novel. The friends know each other through this sport and bond over that. They are driven, helping each other, but also challenging each other, taking considerable risks. It’s clear that Reynolds is familiar with this sport, because it’s described in extreme technical detail. It wouldn’t have mind if that was toned down a bit, I couldn’t really relate to this aspect of the story, since it’s not something I’m interested in.
 
The story switched between the present and the past (going back 10 years). What Reynolds does really well, is ending each chapter on a cliff hanger, which makes you want to continue reading. And even though the snowboarding aspect doesn’t interest me at all, the location and setting is excellent for a thriller like this. The characters hace no connection to the outside world and this provides a lot of psychological tension I the book. At least in the chapters set in the present. The parts set in the past provide is with more information about each character and what happened ten years ago. The story would have been more powerful and exciting if Reynold had kept the book 100 pages shorter. At the end, it drags a bit.
 
Until the end of the story, it remains suspenseful though, as to who challenged the group and what exactly happened to Saskia. I was a little bit disappointed in the twists, one of them was fairly obvious in my opinion.
 
The book is strong because of its setting, the well-fleshed out characters (which are all unlikeable, but I don’t mind that) and the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. Unfortunately the story didn’t surprise me as much as I hoped. Enjoyable read, but pretty average.
 
Rating: 3/ 5