Blog Tour: Trapped by Michael Northrop - Review + Giveaway

Hosted by the wonderful: Evie @ Bookish

I am super excited to be a part of the Trapped blog tour (thanks Evie). Be sure to check out my review and enter the giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Trapped! Thanks for stopping by! :)

Title: Trapped
Author: Michael Northrop
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: February 1, 2011
Format: Paperback* 232 pages
Rating: 4/5
Get it: Amazon | B&N | IndieBound

The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive. . . .

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 when 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.

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My Review

Trapped is a story about a young boy and six other students stuck at their high school during the worst storm any one has ever seen or experience. This book was all about survival, working together as a group and ultimately staying alive in the face of a catastrophe. 

Our narrator and story teller, Scotty Weams, was just a regular teenage boy in high school who had close friends, loved basketball, and got decent grades. From the beginning, Scotty had a great voice. Whatever he was talking about, I was all ears. In Trapped, he really did his part within the group. Scotty was optimistic even when things were not looking so good. He did his best to preoccupy himself and kept others company when needed. Scotty not only thought of himself, but of his mom and everyone with him. He was not selfish and was willing to do what was best for all. I thought Scotty was a cautious boy who thought things through before he did them and I thought that ultimately made him a strong character. 

The other characters in the book are pretty cool. While I didn’t get to know them on the level as I did with Scotty, I enjoyed seeing them through his eyes. I really liked how they were all different from each other but was still able to work together. Even though I doubt this experience with blur their clique lines, I think in a small way they formed some sort of bond. Among the characters I thought Jason and Pete were pretty funny and they brought the comical relief that was needed throughout the book. Les seemed like a scary and tough guy, but he wasn’t so bad as everyone first thought. I think every character in this book was able to see the others as someone different from before. In their own way, I thought everyone was brave even when they were really scared. 

Michael Northrop does a great job at giving the storm a life of its own, making it the center of the story. That storm was relentless and unforgiving each and everyday and I got to see that through Northrop’s beautiful descriptions in his writing. While Trapped has a very slow pacing in the beginning, the writing moves easily and it doesn’t take long for things to really pick up. For me, the slow pacing really allowed me to get to know the story and the setting and really get into it. As a reader, I was able to experience the fear, the desolation, and the inability of have any control over anything. Trapped had that perfect foreboding tone and a sense of hopelessness that Northrop really captured well. There were plenty of times where I was put on edge because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I knew something bad was going to happen, I just didn’t know exactly what. I also have to commend on Northrop’s ability to write reality. He gives us a believable 15 year old voice, a believable snow storm, believable survival tactics, and most of all, believable and true emotions from the characters. 

I have to confess that the ending was slightly disappointing for me in the sense that I didn’t get the closure I wanted. However, like I said before, this is the reality of a true disaster. I think the ending was intentional so that a reader will have their own interpretation because truly, anything could have happened at that point. Nonetheless, this did not hinder my overall enjoyment and likeness of the book. 

All in all, Trapped gives a whole different meaning to truly being stuck. With the instinct of survival in place, the loss that is sure to happen, and the hope that is clinging to mere fingertips comes a story that will have you rethinking the way you cope during a natural disaster. 

*Review copy provided by publisher, thanks Scholastic!

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Giveaway!

One winner will win a finished copy of Trapped by Michael Northrop!

Open to International residents 

-- Go forth and enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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More about the Author

Michael Northrop is the author of two YA novels—Gentlemen, one of the American Library Association's "Best Books for Young Adults" for 2010, and Trapped, a Spring 2011 Indie Next List selection—and the new middle grade novel Plunked. He spent 12 years chasing stories at Sports Illustrated Kids, the last five as baseball editor. His articles and stories have been published widely.

Connect with Michael Northrop:

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