….. That ending though.  If there’s anything Ania Ahlborn knows how to do, it’s end things in such magnetic, interesting ways.  Ways that stay with you long after you’ve closed the book.  I have to say, the final portions of “The Shuddering” have an awful lot to offer.  Well worth the read, for certain.  Action packed, claustrophobic, reads like a classic Cabin Fever style horror movie.  That’s just plain thrilling.

But… the characters get to a point where they become a bit insufferable.  Don’t get me wrong, in time, you’ll root for damn near every single one of them.  But the way they treat a certain house guest by the name of April is pretty off putting.  This realization doesn’t dawn on them until much later, and she is frequently spoken ill of and placed into unfair predicaments throughout the book.  Obviously, you don’t have to love the characters in a horror story, and the characters being nasty doesn’t hinder the tale’s quality.  For me, their ignorance was a bit much and I felt I spent some time fixating on that when I could’ve been getting scared.

There’s a lot of weird immoral drama going on, but I didn’t mind that so much.  It felt like getting two genres in one, which I can appreciate!  

There are a few loose ends that never seem to be re-tied, but honestly…. For this story, they worked.  I don’t always like to be left in the dark, but as you’ll quickly discover, we spend all our time free of the sunlight here.  

All in all, totally worth your time.  It missed a few marks for me, true, but it was a thrill through and through.  This is a solid read, and I’m happy I got to spend sometime snowed into that cabin with our cast of questionable heroes.  As annoying as they might’ve been sometimes, it was such a unique ride.