The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn
Terror in the Mountains
The Shuddering by Ania Ahlborn is more like a horror movie than a novel. It features the classic “cabin in the woods” trope and the characters make many of the classic dumb mistakes associated with the genre.
Plus, the dog is the first to notice that something’s wrong. Dogs are always the smartest characters in horror movies! The eerie, desolate atmosphere is similar to winter horror movies like The Lodge.
A group of friends are vacationing in a cabin deep in the Colorado mountains during a dark, stormy winter weekend. There’s plenty of interpersonal drama going on. Ryan and Jane Adler, twin siblings, are there with Ryan’s friend, Sawyer, and Jane’s friend, Lauren. Sawyer’s girlfriend, April, whom the Adlers barely know, also joins them.
Jane used to date Sawyer and still has feelings for him. April can feel the rekindling romantic tension between Jane and Sawyer, which fills her with dread and insecurity. She’s cranky and spiteful with the rest of the group. Meanwhile, Ryan is quickly falling for Lauren. He’s a commitment-phobe, but has decided that she’s the right girl for him. Meanwhile, their pet husky, Oona, is behaving strangely. She seems afraid of something outside.
So far this seems more like a drama or dark comedy than horror, but there’s a twist. Strange monsters inhabit the woods and they’re searching for fresh meat. When the friends get snowed in by a blizzard, they have no easy path to escape when the creatures come after them.
For the most part, I didn’t mind the relationship drama. The one storyline that rang false was Ryan’s sudden fascination with Lauren. She’s described as stunningly beautiful, but this guy is basically ready to get married after knowing her for like two days. This storyline is forced and not believable.
The characters are not particularly likeable, and they’re certainly not intelligent, but that doesn’t matter much in a story like this. The monsters are what makes this story interesting. Read no further if you don’t want to know any of the details about them.
I figured we’d get something more conventional in The Shuddering, like sasquatches or werewolves, but Ahlborn instead creates a mysterious race of hideous skeletal creatures who hunt in packs. What are they? Where do they come from? These questions are left open to interpretation. My guess – they’re starving refugees of an alien race who have crash landed on Earth.
Ahlborn’s writing style is cinematic and straightforward. I don’t want to belabor the point, but this really does read and feel like a horror movie.
There are odd contrasts in terms of how she deals with the fates of her characters. Some characters’ deaths are described in gory detail, while others are left ambiguous as to whether they died at all. The ending left some aspects too open ended for my taste.
The Shuddering is fast paced and kept me entertained throughout. Despite its flaws, I was never bored. I’m not sure why, but I kind of cared about the characters. Not enough to fear their demises, of course (actually many of the deaths are the best parts of the novel), but enough to continue reading the story.
Rating
The Shuddering doesn’t have anything profound to say, but it does a solid workmanlike job of accomplishing its goal: to provide an entertaining and gory winter horror story with intriguing monsters.
Rating from 1 (avoid at all costs) to 10 (masterpiece): 8
