The Winter People

The Winter People 

by Rebekah L. Purdy

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Expected Publication: September 2nd 2014

Received From: Entangled Publishing, LLC.  (Thanks guys! This was in exchange for an honest review) 

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Salome Montgomery fears winter—the cold, the snow, the ice, but most of all, the frozen pond she fell through as a child. Haunted by the voices and images of the strange beings that pulled her to safety, she hasn't forgotten their warning to "stay away." For eleven years, she has avoided the winter woods, the pond, and the darkness that lurks nearby. But when failing health takes her grandparents to Arizona, she is left in charge of maintaining their estate. This includes the "special gifts" that must be left at the back of the property.
 


Salome discovers she’s a key player in a world she’s tried for years to avoid. At the center of this world is the strange and beautiful Nevin, who she finds trespassing on her family’s property. Cursed with dark secrets and knowledge of the creatures in the woods, his interactions with Salome take her life in a new direction. A direction where she'll have to decide between her longtime crush Colton, who could cure her fear of winter. Or Nevin who, along with an appointed bodyguard, Gareth, protects her from the darkness that swirls in the snowy backdrop. An evil that, given the chance, will kill her.

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Between the stunning cover and dramatic synopsis, who wouldn't want to read The Winter People? It is every paranormal lovers’s dream, drama, romance, mysterious "winter people," the looming threat of death, insanity, and of course magic. What more could you want?

Unfortunately, upon reading it I found that I could want a lot more. Starting out with the elimination of the "quadrangle" and Purdy calls it. Love triangles and similar situations are not typically admired by book worms because they tend to be cliché and unrealistic. This "quadrangle" is no exception. Salome spends her whole book chasing after one love interest, then another, and another. In fact that is almost all she does during the entire story. Which is severely unnerving, not to mention irritating, and reflects badly on women, and teenage girls. Her best friend is no better, but at least that is a personality treat, that can probably be chalked up to some deep psychological thing, or is just a phase. While, for Salome there is something beyond her control about her chasing after every hot person with testosterone that crosses her path, it is still up to her as well.

 I was also disappointed that she was constantly in need of protection. She lacked strength until she was given a strange burst of it at the end and had to constantly rely on others throughout the entire book. She even called herself a damsel and talked about how she was acting like a "damsel in distress,” and sadly she couldn't have been more right, but it wasn't just a onetime thing, it was constant, every second. Yes, she had a lot of troubles and dire situations, but eventually she should have had the strength to save herself, at least on occasion, even in basic conversations she called out to others and relied on other people to "save her." It was pitiful and I was upset that she was not a better model for the readers. The audience this is primarily written for, is at a stage in life where it is imperative that they have strong role models surrounding them. Salome, was definitely not one. 

All of the characters, in fact, were quite lackluster. They were all stereotypical, while vivid. They didn't seem to jump of the page as much as they could have because of the severe lack of individuality and originality.

Purdy's writing was solid. Her language was good, as well as the other basic mechanics of it. Occasionally phrases stuck out as odd, or something didn't fit like tugging on a sweater after we found out she was wearing only a dress tights and boots, but there was no major problems and I assume all of these little issues will be fixed before the release. 

The plot was well paced and the story itself was enchanting. It pulled you in from the start and kept your attention, demanding you devour every word, cover to cover. I was disappointed by the predictability of the action as well as the repetitiveness of it, but somehow I still couldn't put it down. 

In addition to this and Salome's passiveness, the reader was frequently told about all this work and research she was doing, but only once or twice, did she actually spend time researching. Other than those rare times, we were just told over and over and over again about how she was doing research, and how much time she was spending researching, but we never saw it happened. It was a bit annoying and it didn't make sense that we "saw" her run off dating this boy or that boy, but rarely doing this vital research, which logically just doesn't make any sense. It was not realistic. 

Last Thoughts: While I started out this book loving it, my opinion of it quickly spiraled downward. While enchanting, The Winter People, is greatly flawed, and instead of loving it like I first thought I would, I found myself in the opposite corner. I give it two out of five stars and I am sincerely disappointed in it.

Add it on Goodreads and buy it through Liberty Bay Books. 

Gif. Consensus: