Shutter by Courtney Alameda

Shutter

by 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 analogue SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exercises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She's aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz 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 Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse, she learns that she has a week to save them, or they will die.

Reviewed by littleread1 on

4 of 5 stars

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SHUTTER is one of those stories I went into blind - really the freaky cover and the blurb grabbed my interest right away. I've never read anything by this author, nor had I heard anything (other than seeing the cover around) about the book. I rarely take risks with books I know nothing about, but this risk paid off for me.

I am not sure what I expected going in, maybe "horror light" but that is certainly not what I got. Early on there is blood and gore - and not just for shock value. It actually moved the story along. That being said, if you are squeamish this is probably not the best book for you to pick up. Bad things happen, often. To good and bad people. The characters are not perfect, which makes them more relateable.

There were some twists I certainly didn't see coming. Some things that happened that I thought for sure they would get out of at the last second. And I may or may not have had disturbing dreams for a couple of nights while reading and after finishing SHUTTER. But that is what a good horror does - it gets under your skin and lingers. I love being freaked out, especially by a book that is more than just words on a page. SHUTTER painted a picture in my imagination that was potentially more horrifying than anything the TV could show me. A 'picture' really is worth a thousand words.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 31 January, 2015: Finished reading
  • 31 January, 2015: Reviewed