Tuesday, November 10, 2015

HOLIDAY HAPPINESS: Book Review: Shutter by Courtney Alameda

Title: Shutter
Author: Courtney Alameda
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Release Date: February 3, 2015
Format Read: Hardback (FC)

Description from Goodreads: Horror has a new name: Introducing Courtney Alameda.

Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat-- a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-wiz and the boy who developed her camera's technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.


When a routine ghost hint goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn't exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she's faced before... or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she's in for one hell of a week.


As soon as I saw the cover for SHUTTER, I was intrigued. I had hopes of snagging an ARC, but that didn't get to happen, so I waited for it to hit shelves and then ran out to get it. 

Now, I am one of the biggest scaredy cats that probably has ever lived, but the idea of a YA horror novel had me curious, so I read it. AND. LOVED. IT. I cannot say enough good things about SHUTTER-- the plot was perfection, thick and juicy; the characters were relatable and believable; the monsters? YES. The science was solid, and the angle of exorcising ghosts by camera was so uniquely fantastic.

I give SHUTTER a glowing five stars, and I eagerly await book two.

Happily, 
Stephanie

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