Book Bites: 3 Sentence Intro About What This Story Is

All Mira wanted was to quickly get home for the holidays and be there for her mother, who has been going through grief for the past year since the death of her twin sister. When bad weather threatens to hold her up at the airport, Mira takes a risk and accepts the offer of a ride to her hometown with strangers who are also desperate to get home for the holidays. As the snowstorm thickens, their road trip becomes more dangerous, and Mira slowly realizes that someone in the group may be sabotaging their chances of getting home at all.

**This book contains mature themes

*As usual, to see the official book teaser/summary of this, go to anywhere books are found and read up more about what this book is about.

Now on to My Commentary (**May Contain Spoilers: Read at Your Own Risk)

Selected Book as a Part of Big Library Read (#BigLibraryRead)

I picked up this book because of the Big Library Read (through OverDrive) which allows readers to borrow and read the same selected e-book at the same time without waiting!

Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards is available from November 1 to November 15, 2021.

The Big Library Read is offered about three times a year. If this is your first introduction to this program, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a cool remote “book club” type event. Learn more about Big Library Read here!

There was also a discussion board along with a live interview with the author where readers can ask questions and gain insight from the author about their book. I have the opportunity to tune into the live interview event on November 8, 2021! I enjoyed this title and would be interested in reading some more of her works. You can follow the link here to join the discussion of Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards.

Onto the Actual Review

This was my first time checking out a book by Natalie D. Richards and I really enjoyed Five Total Strangers!

Hear me out. It did feel like a Lifetime movie to me. But that’s not a bad thing, okay? I happen to really enjoy Lifetime thriller stories. Guilty pleasures.

The Good /My Favorite Parts

What better way to spend the holiday season than to read a book about being stranded in a snowstorm, worrying over whether you’ll make it home (or even survive at this point) and having to rely on your intuition to discern who in the group you can trust…and who’s lying? Because one among them may be devising a plan to not let anyone in the car get home for the holidays.

Oh, just me? I’m the only one who prefers suspense novels instead of cozy holiday books? I know I’m not. So just check out this book!

Heart pumping. Butt clenching. Page-turner. I was at the edge of my seat, my fears and doubts, multiplying as I read this atmospheric thriller of five teens stuck in a car and in a snowstorm together.

Driving through a snowstorm didn’t seem like a big deal for people desperate to get home on Christmas Eve. That is until everything about the trip went wrong. Are these continuous road trip troubles natural consequences of their situation…or is this the work of sabotage? If so, who in the group is preventing them from reaching their destination?

The depiction of realistic dangers and car accidents made the story the intense spine chiller that it is! This was one of my favorite aspects of the story. Richards masterfully illustrated the very real, frequent and upsetting consequences of driving through snow. Particularly during a snowstorm. Their cautious and achingly slow driving in the worsening weather and environmental conditions alone were enough to build great suspense. Then she adds in the drama within the car.

As much anxiety as this book infused in me about driving in winter, I also (like a masochist) loved reading it because I needed to know if the group survived their drive and arrived at their final destination.

This isn’t exactly a survival story – not in the traditional sense with like being in the outdoors, bear attacks, freezing to death, etc. – but, to me, it is a survival story. They made the decision to get into the car and drive during a snowstorm despite all warning signs. It’s not exactly like they could just turn back once they were on the highway. Especially with the amounting closures due to car wrecks and snow-covered roads. They had to just slowly keep moving from one stop to the next stop. And each stop they make becomes more unnerving than the next as more things go wrong: police are busy taking care of accidents so help comes slowly (if ever), crucial items start suspiciously disappearing, and businesses are closed early so they can’t request help. These teens have to make risky decisions to stay alive and avoid getting more stranded.

I also loved how the realistic and relatable personality shifts with each character as their stressful situation grew.

This reminds me of something Shogo Makishima said when he referenced Nietzsche (you know I had to make a Psycho-Pass reference. I mean, come on!). These two are the ones that come to mind:

“When a man faces fear, his soul is tested. What he was born to seek… what he was born to achieve… his true nature will become clear.”

“An unforeseen situation… An unexpected turn of events… In the face of those, you too will face your true self.”

And WOW, did Richards have me hooked on this page turner because I was so curious to see each character’s reactions under stress. AKA gradually losing their minds with everything happening. Losing your wits! And possibly descent to madness that may, I don’t know, result in some sabotaging behaviors? Who wouldn’t when you’re stuck in a car with strangers? And when things go from an expectedly uncomfortable situation to a possibly criminal and dangerous one. Tensions kept rising. And I LOVED IT. Richards truly is a master of suspense.

Plus each character was grieving about something in their personal life. The howling winds of the storm and slippery conditions provides the environmental parallel to the storm that was brewing within the teens. A personal secret gnawed within each person. And they are on the slippery slope of bubbling over as stress piles on.

This really emphasized the theme that nobody is as they seem at first glance. The people that Mira thought she had categorized weren’t exactly as she originally judged. As more doubts swirl through her mind, she becomes more confused on who is truly an ally or a threat.

The mystery was written beautifully. My mind was riddled with millions of questions as I was reading. I read it meticulously like an obsessed detective, trying to see if I could guess the bad apple among the group. This is the best part of reading mysteries! Plenty of clues and if you pay attention, you might guess who the bad apple is.

My Critiques/Things I Would Have Liked to Have Included in the Story

I always get stuck on writing “critiques” because I don’t think of these comments as critiques. HA! I don’t think any critic ever likes to think of their comments as critiques.

Here goes.

First, Mira is an artist. In the book, we get glimpses of Mira’s artistic mind at work. Certain scenes showed how she would illustrate certain people she sees based off her feelings about them. I found this to be a creative way to get the audience to visualize each character better and subconsciously hint at the role they may play in the overall story.

For example: “Finally happy with the luggage arrangement, Brecken steps back, but Kayla leans in to shove something in her backpack and make her own arrangements. I watch, wondering how I’d paint her. She’s like an overexposed photograph: white skin, pale eyes, and hair so blond it looks silvery under the strange gray parking garage lights.”

Here’s what I was envisioning that I thought might utilize Mira’s art skills more in her present situation. Her skills do get mentioned but only in the flashbacks, through comments by others, and only as thoughts by Mira.

So each in character in the car begins doing an activity that reveals their character/personality. Josh reads, Kayla sleeps, Harper texts and journals, and Brecken leads and drives.

I would have liked to have Mira sketch pictures to depict how she saw each person rather than just thinking about it. And as their group continues their journey, Mira continues sketching and the pictures have subtly shifted, which she doesn’t realize at first but starts to pick up on when she looks back at her previous drawings. A visual representation of how each characters’ true self is gradually coming out. These additional details will also clue in the audience on which stranger has bad intentions.

Hey, I’m just writing down what I was thinking as I read. I really would have loved to experience Mira utilizing her artistic skills but it doubles over as her intuition giving her hints about who to and not to trust. But granted, you know, snowstorm, shit happening every few miles, and suspicious circumstances left and right. They got bigger problems to think about.

Final Thoughts

It’s difficult to write a review on a suspense, mystery type book without giving too much away. I hope others will check out this book and get to experience it for yourself. I think she did a wonderful job designing the complexity of the mystery in this story so that you got enough hints (if you’re keen enough to spot them) but that it heightened your curiosity keep reading for the ultimate conclusion and villain reveal!

I don’t know why this story gave me vibes of the movie Devil (2010) and Final Destination 2 (2003) but set in a wintry environment. There’s no supernatural element to this book. Just good ole butt-clenching suspense. So there you go.

Check out this book if it piques your interest. Hope you enjoy it as your next read or a re-read!

And remember, “Every story is worth the read. Someone (some poor, overworked, ink-stains-on-the-clothes lovely soul) took the time to write it.”