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A review by jimmyjamesnickels
Shutter by Courtney Alameda
5.0
To properly enjoy telling this review, I'm going to need some epic music accompanying me in the background.
'kay, click the link into a new tab. It's cool.
I'll wait.
Are we ready? Let's begin.
This book was crazy awesome. Was it good? It was SO good. Standing ovation for Courtney Alameda. Way, way, way too many writers and publishers seem to think "YA" is a synonym for "stupid". Especially the supernatural themed stuff, if you're a fan of both YA and the paranormal you'd better grab one of those obnoxious halogen flashlights and a snorkel because it's friggen murky out there. This book was just fantastic. It was fun, a full speed and totally engrossing page turner unafraid to define the world created within the pages.
Shutter is the kind of crazy, silly, wonderful all out fun that makes me feel like adopting my monster truck rally announcer voice:
You want paranormal excitement? WE'VE GOT GHOSTS AND MONSTERS AND ZOMBIES OOH YEAH! You want action? EXPLOOOOSIONS! MOTORCYCLE CHASES! LOTS OF GUNS! Fight scenes! TACTI-COOL CAMERAS! Hand to hand combat! Action sequences that would make Mission Impossible era Tom Cruise proooooud #IDOMYOWNSTUNTS ! Did I mention the VIOLENCE? BLOOD GUTS AND GORE! Violence so X-treme YOU'LL GOUGE YOUR OWN EYES OUUUUUT! But what about romance? We've got FORBIDDEN LOVE! Chaste YA style sexual tension! ANGST THICK ENOUGH TO CHOKE A WOMMMMMBAT! Mansions! Underground lairs! WE'VE GOT DADDY ISSUES! What about the mom? Oh you know we've got a DEAD MOM! XTREMEDEADMOMISSUES! Secret ancient societies! Elite fighting academies! Leather jackets! Unsupervised minors out to save the world! Creepy dead guuuuys with pedo tenancies! ALL THIS AND MORE!
But for real though. It was fun.
Shutter tells the story of Micheline Helsing, a 16 year old with the ability to see ghosts and other paranormal entities through their auras, called a tetrachromat. Which is handy, as this is all set in an alternate version of our world where dead things occasionally run amok and kill lots and lots of people. Micheline is part of an elite fighting group, Helsing Corp, which acts more or less like the zombie/ghost slaying special forces. She does her part to hunt down the baddies using a specially modified camera and because I suck at jacket blurb write ups, I'm just going to leave it there and tell you to read the actual blurb if you want to know more.
Shutter is a story that feels very, very familiar. It's shades of Buffy and Blade and The Matrix and Supernatural and every single "Super special, ultra cool 16 year old and her super cool band of friends out to save the universe" you've ever encountered. But the author is absolutely fearless and unflinching in her ability to build a strong world and real, well rounded characters. I mean, our lead character is named Micheline Helsing and yes, we do mean that Helsing (Van Helsing from Dracula, for the criminally obtuse). We've seen this before, so many times before, the whole "descendants from the Dracula good guys" schtick and usually it's corny as all get out. But Alameda commits completely to the universe she's created in Shutter. The lore feel solid, no idea if the science-y talk behind how the ghost hunting cameras work is legit or not, but damn me if I wasn't nodding sagely at the explanations thinking it all sounded on the up and up. And yes, there are stock tropes here and familiar scenes, but it's never derivative or sloppy. Somehow, even though we recognize all that we're seeing here, it's done in a way that's fresh and inventive.
The story lore and world building in this book were phenomenal. When I was about 150 pages in, I started to feel uneasy because I was pretty sure I'd yet again picked up the first of a new series. Nothing for nothing, but it can be kind of heartbreaking when you start a new book, only to learn that you just committed the next three to five years (or more, with a nod to the Game of Thrones fans) of your life to getting resolution to a story. I actually stopped at the midway point and did some careful, suspicious searching online, fully expecting to see the dreaded "First book in an exciting new series!" label slapped somewhere. On one hand, it's somewhat rare to see a stand alone book in these trilogy plagued times. On the other, if ever a book needed a series, Shutter would be it.
Yet another on my favorites of 2015 list. I can not wait to see what else this author dishes out.
'kay, click the link into a new tab. It's cool.
I'll wait.
Are we ready? Let's begin.
This book was crazy awesome. Was it good? It was SO good. Standing ovation for Courtney Alameda. Way, way, way too many writers and publishers seem to think "YA" is a synonym for "stupid". Especially the supernatural themed stuff, if you're a fan of both YA and the paranormal you'd better grab one of those obnoxious halogen flashlights and a snorkel because it's friggen murky out there. This book was just fantastic. It was fun, a full speed and totally engrossing page turner unafraid to define the world created within the pages.
Shutter is the kind of crazy, silly, wonderful all out fun that makes me feel like adopting my monster truck rally announcer voice:
You want paranormal excitement? WE'VE GOT GHOSTS AND MONSTERS AND ZOMBIES OOH YEAH! You want action? EXPLOOOOSIONS! MOTORCYCLE CHASES! LOTS OF GUNS! Fight scenes! TACTI-COOL CAMERAS! Hand to hand combat! Action sequences that would make Mission Impossible era Tom Cruise proooooud #IDOMYOWNSTUNTS ! Did I mention the VIOLENCE? BLOOD GUTS AND GORE! Violence so X-treme YOU'LL GOUGE YOUR OWN EYES OUUUUUT! But what about romance? We've got FORBIDDEN LOVE! Chaste YA style sexual tension! ANGST THICK ENOUGH TO CHOKE A WOMMMMMBAT! Mansions! Underground lairs! WE'VE GOT DADDY ISSUES! What about the mom? Oh you know we've got a DEAD MOM! XTREMEDEADMOMISSUES! Secret ancient societies! Elite fighting academies! Leather jackets! Unsupervised minors out to save the world! Creepy dead guuuuys with pedo tenancies! ALL THIS AND MORE!
But for real though. It was fun.
Shutter tells the story of Micheline Helsing, a 16 year old with the ability to see ghosts and other paranormal entities through their auras, called a tetrachromat. Which is handy, as this is all set in an alternate version of our world where dead things occasionally run amok and kill lots and lots of people. Micheline is part of an elite fighting group, Helsing Corp, which acts more or less like the zombie/ghost slaying special forces. She does her part to hunt down the baddies using a specially modified camera and because I suck at jacket blurb write ups, I'm just going to leave it there and tell you to read the actual blurb if you want to know more.
Shutter is a story that feels very, very familiar. It's shades of Buffy and Blade and The Matrix and Supernatural and every single "Super special, ultra cool 16 year old and her super cool band of friends out to save the universe" you've ever encountered. But the author is absolutely fearless and unflinching in her ability to build a strong world and real, well rounded characters. I mean, our lead character is named Micheline Helsing and yes, we do mean that Helsing (Van Helsing from Dracula, for the criminally obtuse). We've seen this before, so many times before, the whole "descendants from the Dracula good guys" schtick and usually it's corny as all get out. But Alameda commits completely to the universe she's created in Shutter. The lore feel solid, no idea if the science-y talk behind how the ghost hunting cameras work is legit or not, but damn me if I wasn't nodding sagely at the explanations thinking it all sounded on the up and up. And yes, there are stock tropes here and familiar scenes, but it's never derivative or sloppy. Somehow, even though we recognize all that we're seeing here, it's done in a way that's fresh and inventive.
The story lore and world building in this book were phenomenal. When I was about 150 pages in, I started to feel uneasy because I was pretty sure I'd yet again picked up the first of a new series. Nothing for nothing, but it can be kind of heartbreaking when you start a new book, only to learn that you just committed the next three to five years (or more, with a nod to the Game of Thrones fans) of your life to getting resolution to a story. I actually stopped at the midway point and did some careful, suspicious searching online, fully expecting to see the dreaded "First book in an exciting new series!" label slapped somewhere. On one hand, it's somewhat rare to see a stand alone book in these trilogy plagued times. On the other, if ever a book needed a series, Shutter would be it.
Yet another on my favorites of 2015 list. I can not wait to see what else this author dishes out.