Maja (The Nocturnal Library)'s Reviews > Shutter

4.5 stars

I remember starting Shutter with a certain amount of skepticism, cynical soul that I am. In my own defense, good YA horrors are few and far between – mostly they’re just creepy enough to justify the label and not a bit more. But Courtney Alameda proved me wrong in no time at all. By page 30, I was gripping my poor Kindle tightly, disgusted, terrified and oddly thrilled all at the same time. In all honesty, I haven’t read a YA horror so scary and exciting since The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman.

Shutter is exactly what I want all my YA books to be: exciting, different and most importantly, romantic. It has all the right ingredients, but they’re put together in an entirely new way which makes it one of the best books I’ve read in a good long while. Alameda combined (mostly) excellent characterization with an incredible sense of pacing to give us a truly memorable read.

The basis of Alameda’s worldbuilding is a biological rarity – tetrachromacy – to which she gave paranormal properties. Micheline Helsing, descendant of the Van Helsing, is a tetrachromat, which allows her to see and classify ghosts better than anyone else. Her family has always fought against the dead and Micheline carried on the tradition and obligation even after losing half her family to ghosts. She and her father are the only remaining members of the Helsing family and they are both members of the Helsing Corps, an agency that defends the cities from the supernatural.

For the most part, Alameda’s characterization is superb. Micheline and her crew are excellently developed, each with a very distinct personality. Their group dynamic is also very interesting, as is Micheline’s relationship with Ryder. However, Micheline’s relationship with her father was somewhat exaggerated and his complete blindness to her needs seemed entirely too unrealistic. As the main antagonist of the story, at least emotionally, Micheline’s father came across as completely self-absorbed, utterly mean and perhaps even two-dimensional. His character brought a very strong emotional layer, but didn’t otherwise contribute.

Otherwise though, Shutter was practically flawless. The entire experience was reminiscent of Anna Dressed in Blood – the surprise, the horror, the excellent writing, and the creepiness of the story, which seems to be Alameda’s special talent.

Shutter seems to be a standalone, which I usually support, but in this case I feel that there’s room for more and I hope she’ll decide to go back to these characters. The sooner the better.