Whiteland has an intriguing premise but I unfortunately couldn’t get myself to stay interested. I am unable to finish this book, I don’t believe I am the target audience for it. Thank you very much to Netgalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy!

Honestly, I’m just going to come out straight away and say this: this was the worst book I’ve read in a really long time. For the right reader I’m sure it will work, and I’m normally not too big on horror stories as it is anyway, but. This definitely wasn’t for me.

To begin with, there’s nothing offensive or anything about this book so objectively it’s definitely not terrible. What made me really dislike this book was how stupidly boring this was. I’m really a chicken, literally everything that even touches on being horror usually scares me half to death, and a big thing about this book for me was that I wasn’t scared at all. Not even creeped out in the slightest. I mean, whenever I read horror books – which very rarely happens – the point is to be scared, but instead I found myself wanting to put this book down (and I never do-not-finish books, ever) or actually skim reading it, which also super rarely happens.

Moreover, I found Kira to be a privileged, unsufferable main character while also feeling pretty…flat. Same goes for pretty much all characters in this book, and the romance had me roll my eyes very hard.

I also found the writing to be pretty confusing too big a portion of the time. I’m also pretty mad because I normally love Scandinavian-inspired things but I found myself really not caring at all.

All in all, I think it’s safe to say that this book really wasn’t for me.

Unfortunately, this isn't my cup of tea. I wanted to love this book. The plot about Scandinavian folklore fascinated me. But it was hard for me to grasp the story with its prose, and I was feeling more detached as I kept on reading it. I found it too verbose, like the writer was trying to impress the readers with her style? Sorry, I don't know. I just wished it was written in a simpler way and condensed.

Thank you for the ARC.

This book started off really strong. It had a very palpable atmosphere and setting. You could almost feel yourself surrounded by the cold. The horror events started right away and that made me immediately interested and excited.
It also did a really good job of setting up and immediate connection between the main character and the potential love interest. The dynamics between the family were well established and interesting.
I really enjoyed the first half of the book.

Unfortunately, I hated the second half of the book.
The pacing is abysmal. So much time is spent doing nothing that I started to feel like I was losing my mind with the main character.
Nothing in Whiteland is well explained which I understand was the point but it makes for a very boring reading experience. The book seems to lose any sense of the characters motivations.
The longer the book went on the lower my rating got. I truly think that a third of this book could be removed and that it would make for a stronger book overall.
There's a good story in here somewhere but as it is, it's not enjoyable.

I have no idea how to describe how I feel about this one. I didn’t like it was much as I thought I would, but I enjoyed it more than I feel like I should have.

Generally speaking, Kira and her family are on vacation in Switzerland when her sister goes out for a walk at night and nearly dies. She is somehow changed when she gets back, terrifying and otherworldly and her parents just seem to want to pretend like it’s not happening. She makes friends with a local boy, Callum, who helps her even though no one is exactly sure why he would.

I felt for Kira throughout this book, mostly because the real horror seemed to be how childish her parents were and how much they relied on her to be the adult... it continued on in the most annoyingly unacknowledged way and that was truly frustrating.

The horror elements are based on Scandinavian folklore and are passably frightening, at least in the beginning—I feel like this lost me around halfway and I never really got back into it again. It seemed like it had a little too much filler, especially around the middle. But I still generally liked it... perhaps it reminded me more of a screenplay than a novel.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I just couldn't like this one. I really tried and am glad I finished it but it was so...strange. It had a good premise but I just didn't end up liking it

Sadly other book I'm DNF , been trying to understand what is going in for an Hour and half and i'm so confused .

* I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*

This was definitely not for me and I'll be honest, I really struggled to finish it. Learn from my fail: for better or worse, blurbs are a product of marketing, whose intention is to sell books, not match the right reader to the book. The blurb SOUNDED like everything I love: magic! Folklore! The forest ! Scandinavian gods! This is not what the book delivered. So I'll address all of the things that led to this being a 2-star review, which I loathe to give because I take no pleasure in a writer whose work missed the target. However, I also wouldn't want someone who paid money to be as disappointed as I was.

First: It is about 25 chapters too long. Instead of filling extra chapters with bloated, overwritten stuff that drags the plot to a grinding halt, this could have easily been edited down to 25, well-paced, tightly written scenes. I hold the editors and publisher more accountable for this, because its clearly there to beef up the page count. I was ready for the book to be over at the 44% mark, but I soldiered on because I hate writing a review without giving a book the chance to redeem itself. (This book did not.)

Second: Like many YA novels, it falls victim to "writerly writing", full of unnecessary adverbs and awkward cliches. There's sardonic grins, sly looks, scoffing, grinning (sardonic and otherwise), droll smiles, huffing, hissing, glaring, chortling, chuckling, wry smirks, snorts, groans, exclamations, upturned chins, etc. Again: I blame the editor as much as the author. You had ONE job.

Next: The story is told in 3rd person present tense, which is weird for a reader because it sounds like a script. There is also a lot of passive action, instead of active voice. It was also clunky that the main characters parents are consistently called by their first names, because the expository action was overly confusing. There are also very strange turns of language like an " engine kangarooing" or an emotion that "washes over like a suicide" that I guess are supposed to be creative but felt like a reach.

The characters act very unrealistic vs how actual people act (for example, how many families do you know where if one of their children were carried home unconscious from frostbite would be more concerned with making their flight than going to the hospital?) This makes for characters you can't relate to and stakes that only feel high because the author tells you they are.

I am also SO over YA novels creating an aggravating, insulting, condescending, conflict riddled interaction between a male/female pairing and then trying to sell it to us as "romance." I am so tired of seeing a male character talk down to a female (who is usually THE PROTAGONIST), make overly familiar jokes at her expense, yell at her, antagonize her, question her competence.... Only to be rewarded by getting his face kissed. Boring, and honestly really bad for a pre-teen or teen reader because you're basically planting the seed of the idea that men who make you feel bad are boyfriend material. Its the 21st century, come on. Create romantic pairings that defy hetero normative couplings and treat each other well -- aren't those the characters whose faces deserve to be kissed?

By the end of this book I was not invested in any of the characters, and I honestly can't believe there's two more books planned in the series, except I can, because the ending was incredibly unsatisfying and yielded no answers. I won't be along for the ride on the next two, but if this book is your jam, more power to you.

Eighteen-year-old Kira is used to being a de facto third parent for her wild and emotionally unstable older sister, Romy. Romy’s been through several psychiatrist diagnoses, scrapes with the law, and disappearances. But during a family vacation in the Swiss Alps, Romy survives a night in the freezing Alpine forest that should have killed her—and comes back all wrong. Kira braves the mysterious and ominous woods in a last-ditch attempt to save her sister.

Whiteland is Rosie Cranie-Higgs’s first novel, and although the setting and certain moments of it are creepy, reading the novel feels a bit like losing track of a trail than being transported to another world. The first chapter sets up a miasma of a sentient, malicious Other that threatens anyone who wanders too far into the woods, and its protagonist doesn’t make a serious attempt at finding it until halfway through the novel. The biggest problem with this work is that, although it markets itself as a suspenseful horror/general fiction book, the plotting is extremely uneven. Several times, events begin to happen much faster while Kira and Callum explore the woods, but it’s extremely confusing; rather than cut out extraneous dialogue that doesn’t add to the story, the context of where the characters are, and what the landscape is like around them, is missing. Without the scene-setting of that context, events like Kira and Callum realizing the forest is changing, or that the characters are lost in a landscape with dangerous wildlife, falls flat instead of inspiring dread.

The first chapter also feels more exciting than most of the book, partially because it’s written from Romy’s point of view. Romy is depicted slightly stereotypically as a person with mental health issues, but she has agency, a backstory, and a lot of conflict in her life in the one chapter she features in. After that, the book is mainly written from the perspective of Kira who actively avoids conflict whenever possible, only does things when forced to, and has very few character traits that aren’t related to being a stand-in parent for her sister or resentful of her parents. While it’s understandable and believable in the context of a dysfunctional family, any development to her character is extremely slow, and she spends an inordinate amount of time bantering with Callum, a Scottish young man who finds Romy and befriends Kira. While the conversations and time with Callum take up a LOT of the page count of Whiteland, they aren’t witty or revealing enough to be memorable after they’re over, and very rarely are crucial to the plot.

Callum also feels a bit like a cardboard cut-out, and it’s difficult to describe him, apart from being sarcastic and knowledgeable about the area near Kira and Romy’s hotel. More interesting characters fall to the wayside, and yet I can’t name anything Kira or Callum actually like, hope to do, or have a sense of what they would be like before the events of the novel. The novel actually feels a bit like a cookie cutter young adult horror novel, with how much of it focuses on a budding fondness between its two leads, and how often Kira complains about her family. I actually had to double-check that she wasn’t fifteen or sixteen when it became clear that Callum (who is more obviously an adult) was interested in her. While the idea of a horror novel set in Scandinavia, with creatures that aren’t often seen in other works, intrigued me and originally drew me to the novel, I couldn’t help but feel that Whiteland could have been a much stronger book if it were much shorter, and a bit more mindful about its audience.

I was excited to get to review my first NetGalley book and was honestly excited about the premise of the book. That being said, I just could not bring myself to finish the book. Although it started strong and had a great "creepy" factor, the book just didn't continue to move at the pace you would expect with a thriller. After that I seemed to get a little lost and my interest was just not maintained. Writing a debut novel is tough and I think the plot had promise, but the execution just was not there for me.

I think that had I not kind of been burned by a couple 'dark fantasies posing as horror stories' already this year, I'd have been a little more okay with WHITELAND, but as it was, when it definitely shifted from a promising horror tilt to something different, I was pretty frustrated. That isn't to say that there isn't promise here, because I think that there is. Cranie-Higgs has taken a unique (at least to me) folklore inspiration and turned it into the start of a fantasy series that may appeal to people, but when you reference EVIL DEAD in a promotional material, I expect you to deliver some serious folk horror with a bit of nasty edge. WHITELAND doesn't have that. Throw in some story telling that feels like it's going in circles, and it just didn't gel for me.

I do think that fans of dark fairytale stories will find something to like in WHITELAND, so I'm not going to write it off completely. But don't go in thinking that it's going to be a horror story, because you will probably be disappointed.

“Anneliese.”

What is in a name you say? Depends on who you ask. For some, it is the name of a murderess. For others, it is the name of a beloved mother.

A holiday for the quintessential modern family turns into a nightmare with a step into the woods and an ending that you will not soon forget.

Going to Switzerland for Christmas was meant to be fun, not end up with a visit to Narnia meets Alice In Wonderland. When Romy is brought back in the arms of a young Scot named Callum after going on a near death excursion to the woods at midnight, she isn’t the same. Although always dark and brooding, this just wasn’t the same! Is this really Romy or someone pretending to be? Kira needs to know and goes on a quest that would take her to a place she would never imagine, not even in her wildest dreams. To Whiteland.

On this journey she meets the unimaginable and sees things she can never unsee or forget. Will she find out who Anneliese is? Why is she so important and more importantly, why is she so important to Kira and her family?

With subtle hints of Scottish wit and dry British humor, this is a book that will keep you coming back for more and make you question whether an ending is ever the end.

Whiteland was as much of a surprising book at the beginning as it was at the end. I felt like it left me asking more questions then answering them. I enjoyed the new twist on the Norwegian folklore of whiteland and the three princess but I had to do my own research on how they were connected, and the main character left me frustrated with her lack of character development.

I was enjoying the first part of the book, however, as it went on I became disinterested due to it being repetitive & slow. The base story is good and there is a good creep factor going on. The lack of pace resulted my disengagement & also reduced the intensity of the horror feelings. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me, however, please read other reviews or just pick up the book, as I think I may be in the minority on this one.

This has such a great and strong beginning, then about 35%-40% through it peters out. I almost DNF, but kept on and then it DID pick back up and I cannot believe how great it got!!

It definitely isn't horror to me, I'd say more thriller than anything, but still worth a read and I recommend it.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to a good scary book -- the cover was cool and the description was interesting. However, when I got into the book it was not at all what I thought. I had many issues with this book, and unfortunately, I don't really have anything positive to say about it. I wish I did, but sadly, there was nothing in this book that would convince me that this was a final draft.

The problems start with the writing, which, while isn't horrible, just feels very juvenile. I like prose filled writing, but the writing in this book was so stitled and awkward, as was the dialogue. It made reading the book very, very difficult.

The other issue is I was bored during this book. So very, very bored. I wanted to be invested, but I didn't like the characters, I didn't like the plot once we got into it. And this was only at 13%! But I decided to give the whole book a go in hopes there was something redeeming. At 30% and then 60% there was nothing that was redeeming. In fact, the whole book felt very disjointed overall. Nothing worked, nothing was cohesive. It was one big mess.

This was not a good book -- it wasn't for me, and I could not recommend it. There were just too many issues.

An innovative mix of horror and fantasy drawn from Scandinavian folklore. Elements of a dark fairy tale that will appeal to teens and young adult. The writing style is a bit different than I've encountered reading other horror novels, A promising start that fades into a slow burn; areas of repetition burden the plot at times. I do recommend this book but its appeal may not be for everyone. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC.

A teenage girl wonders off into the woods and comes back to the hotel where she is staying with her family in Switerland. She should be dead, but instead, she is trapped in a world known as White Land, and she acts like she doesn't want to leave, but you can tell she is trapped and silently crying for the help of her sister. The book was interesting at the beginning...
Until I lost interest... I really tried to get into this book as I am a fan of horror, but all the fantasy mixed in did not interest me in the least. Landscapes that change? Scary horse type creatures? Birds with lighted wings? Ferry type creatures who whisper "Hello"? This was all really too much for me and I was not able to finish this book. I got about halfway through before I finally gave up.
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to give another honest review.

The initial chapters offered great promise, but overall this novel was quite a disappointment.

To be brief, as I feel this calls for this particular brand of brevity, this folklore-ish read will grab readers at its start only to drag them along for some time. The dialogue is rather off-putting and stilted, and it all feels very Alice and Wonderland without the wonder. Perhaps with more work and in fine-tuning the details, this book could transform into a cohesive and more readable story, but for now, I will rate it at 1 star.

The narration seemed to have a very staccato rhythm that gave the writing an extra momentum and the scenes and setting extra eeriness.

I would recommend this to readers that want to move with the main character through the story.