Title: Trapped
Author: Michael Northrop
Year of Publication: 2011
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 232
First Line: "We were the last seven kids waiting around to get picked up from Tattawa Regional High School."
Summary: Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially with distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision. . . .
Source: Back/Inside of book
Review: This book was harder to read emotionally than I expected it to be. I don't know if this is because I lived through the ice storm of '08 and a bunch of other bad snow-related weather, but it was kind of rough in spots. The book does not have a "14 & up" note or anything, but if you are a younger teen, it might be wise to hold of on reading this, especially if you don't handle tough stuff and pressure well. That said, it was mostly well-written and Northrop did a good job of making the reader attached to some characters and less so to others, which makes the ending easier. That said, the very ending, I felt, was inconclusive and did not really resolve the entire plot. This is a sort of near-miss book. I almost really liked it, just not quite. It might be different for others, though, so it may be worth a read for you.
Worst part: Some of the stuff did not really make sense, logistically. It was nothing glaringly obvious, but something did not quite fit, which was frustrating. Plus the inconclusive ending was annoying.
Best part: The idea for this really interested me, being a native New Englander myself. (I don't know that it's super original, given the amount of "apocalyptic" YA fiction right now [Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone, Gone, Lies, Plague, etc.])
Grade: C+
Other Books by This Author: Gentlemen
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