Review: Trapped by Michael Northrop

Title: Trapped

Author: Michael Northrop

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publishing Date: February 1st, 2011

Pages: 232
Audio Length: 5 Hours and 48 Minutes

Genre: YA Survival Contemporary
TW: N/A

Series: Standalone

Source: Audio

 

The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. . . .
Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision

What made me pick this book up:
I needed a book about winter and this was the best I could find.

What did I like about the cover:
I like the snow. I feel like it fits the book well.

What made me read this book:
I needed a book about winter for my January reading challenge and this one looked really good.

What did I like the most:
I really liked the idea. The premise was good. Teens stuck in a school. Alone with no adults. The idea that they have to survive presumably without electricity, food, or warmth. 
I felt like it could have been a really good survival story, it had so much potential. 

That's about it as far as what I like goes to be honest.

What didn't I like:
This wasn't at all what I was expecting. I was expecting a crazy edge of your seat survival thriller. With things at least kind of happening. 
But instead this was a very slow more contemporary book. Nothing REALLY happened until the end and then the end was just... not really much of an ending. At all. There was no resolution. 

I kept getting the characters mixed up and it didn't even feel very realistic to me. It was just kind of a clipped story. 

I was just very disappointed in this book. I expected a lot more.

Would I read the rest of the series/more from this
author?
Probably. I'd give him one more chance. The writing wasn't bad per say. Just not what I was expecting.

Disappointing. Not really a survival book.

“I was thinking: Is this what love is, feeling like you've been spun around underwater? Forgetting how cold you are, until she looks up and you look down and you're embarrassed and the world comes rushing back in? Or is love not being able to get that image out of your head, the image of the moment right before she looked up?”
― Michael Northrop, Trapped

Michael Northrop is the New York Times bestselling author of Scholastic's new multi-platform series, TombQuest. His first young adult novel, Gentlemen, earned him a Publishers Weekly Flying Start citation, and his second, Trapped, was an Indie Next List selection. His first middle-grade novel, Plunked, was named one of the best children's books of the year by the New York Public Library and was selected for NPR's Backseat Book Club. He is originally from Salisbury, Connecticut, a small town in the foothills of the Berkshire mountains, where he mastered the arts of BB gun shooting, tree climbing, and field goal kicking with only moderate injuries. After graduating from NYU, he worked at Sports Illustrated Kids magazine for 12 years, the last five of those as baseball editor.