Trapped [Kindle Edition]

Trapped by Michael Northrop isn't a book I'd heard a great deal about before I picked it up to read. It's an interesting book to read as the weather is getting colder and the days are getting darker. I found it very atmospheric - as I turned the pages of Trapped I found myself getting colder and colder as well as feeling slightly claustrophobic to be outside and to be free. Unlike these seven teenagers, trapped in their high school during the worst snow storm of the century.

What helped along this feeling of unease and discomfort as I was reading is that each chapter shows a little picture of the snow falling, and as the chapters go along and the snow rises higher and higher, it really made me aware of how I'd feel in the same position. I've never been in a situation where there might be three foot of snow falling in one day, but I imagine it to be terrifying. Especially as a teenager, isolated from everyone.

Trapped tells the story of seven teenagers who have been left behind during a huge snow storm. Our main character is Scotty Weems, a sophomore basketball player, and we see all the events from his perspective. He's stayed behind with two best mates in order to work on this go-cart they're making for shop class. The other students left behind include two freshman girls, a trouble-maker and a loner Goth boy. And as the hours pass, and then the days pass, things within this small high school in the middle of nowhere began to get really desperate.

In some ways, I think I was expecting for the means of survival to be a little more extreme with this book. And if I'm honest, that's probably just because I'm used to the over-dramatisation of disaster movies that I wasn't expecting there to be blankets in the nurse's office or that (of course!) there'd be a huge supply of food in the cafeteria that could feed a handful of kids for a week. I kind of wanted more drama though. It is a high school though, and of course they would be there.

And while I did enjoy Scotty's observations of this weird collection of students and the way in which he began to see the other people in a different light, especially in regards to the Goth boy and the troublemaker, I also wanted more interactions between them. Because this book has been mentioned in the same sentence as The Breakfast Club (one of my favourite films!) I think I was expecting for these kids to open up a little more, share some secrets or to dance about in the library. But towards the end, it is mentioned that this book is more about survival than anything else.

And keeping that in mind, Trapped is subtly scary. The idea of the snow continuing to fall, no way to contact the outside world, having no idea of if somebody is coming for them. With the temperature dropping and no electricity and the roof beginning to cave in, things are looking pretty bad.

I really liked the sound of this book and thought that the striking simplicity of the cover was excellent too. Scotty and his friends are the last seven kids left at the school. The rest of the kids went home when the blizzard started but this lot are still waiting for someone to come and get them. At first it seems like a big adventure, a bit of fun, but the snow gradually gets higher and higher, then the lights and the heat go out. What of no one is coming, how long can they really last in the freezing cold conditions?
I think that Michael Northrop's idea for this YA book is excellent and in the main, I really enjoyed reading it. Northrop really captures the many different emotions, the initial excitement and then the fear begins to kick in. The only thing that I struggled with was the pace, there were a few parts in the book where hardly anything happened and then the pace would suddenly pick up again. I felt that the author was extremely good at giving the reader the feeling of being trapped; the descriptions of the snow building up and taking the light with it really creeped me out.
Overall, I think this book was very good and YA readers will love it. It's one of those books that puts you in a situation and makes you wonder how you would handle it, how would you survive? It's perfect for this time of year so curl up and give it a go.

Trapped is the story of seven teenagers who are left stranded at their school in a terrible blizzard. As the snow storm continues their situation gets worse and worse and it seems less likely that they will be rescued. It's a fight for survival but will they all make it through?

I wasn't too sure what to expect when I picked up Trapped, I was a little worried that it might be too scary for me but although the story was very creepy in places it didn't frighten me as much as I expected. The story definitely makes you feel claustrophobic though and I also found myself shivering as I read about the ever increasing levels of snow (I actually had to curl up in a blanket to continue reading the book!).

I enjoyed the interaction between the students and watching them get to know each other better. The story is narrated by Scotty who stayed late with two of his friends (Pete & Jason) to work on building Jason's go-kart. Scotty feels quite lucky to be trapped with his best friends, he feels it gives them an advantage over most of the others who didn't really know each other before becoming snowed in, but the longer they are stuck with no sign of rescue the more their tempers begin to fray and the friends are at risk of turning on each other. On the other hand you have kids from completely different social groups who would normally never even talk to each other that realise they have more in common than they would have expected as they get to know each other. It was really interesting to see the unexpected friendships that start to develop as the story continues.

I think I was expecting their fight for survival to be harder than it was, not to say that they had an easy time of it because that is far from true, but they had access to a ready food supply and managed to quickly come up with ways to get water and some heat. I guess it makes sense that a school would have plenty of food supplies but it did make the story a little less dramatic than it could have been. This was still a story that I couldn't put down though and it did make me think about whether I would have survived in similar circumstances. By the time I'd finished reading I wanted to go to the supermarket and stockpile food just in case of a snow storm. This was an enjoyable read and one that makes for very creepy winter reading, just make sure you're sitting in front of a roaring fire before you pick it up!