I have no idea how to describe how I feel about this one. I didn’t like it was much as I thought I would, but I enjoyed it more than I feel like I should have.

Generally speaking, Kira and her family are on vacation in Switzerland when her sister goes out for a walk at night and nearly dies. She is somehow changed when she gets back, terrifying and otherworldly and her parents just seem to want to pretend like it’s not happening. She makes friends with a local boy, Callum, who helps her even though no one is exactly sure why he would.

I felt for Kira throughout this book, mostly because the real horror seemed to be how childish her parents were and how much they relied on her to be the adult... it continued on in the most annoyingly unacknowledged way and that was truly frustrating.

The horror elements are based on Scandinavian folklore and are passably frightening, at least in the beginning—I feel like this lost me around halfway and I never really got back into it again. It seemed like it had a little too much filler, especially around the middle. But I still generally liked it... perhaps it reminded me more of a screenplay than a novel.

thank you to the publisher and netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I just couldn't like this one. I really tried and am glad I finished it but it was so...strange. It had a good premise but I just didn't end up liking it

Sadly other book I'm DNF , been trying to understand what is going in for an Hour and half and i'm so confused .

* I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review*

This was definitely not for me and I'll be honest, I really struggled to finish it. Learn from my fail: for better or worse, blurbs are a product of marketing, whose intention is to sell books, not match the right reader to the book. The blurb SOUNDED like everything I love: magic! Folklore! The forest ! Scandinavian gods! This is not what the book delivered. So I'll address all of the things that led to this being a 2-star review, which I loathe to give because I take no pleasure in a writer whose work missed the target. However, I also wouldn't want someone who paid money to be as disappointed as I was.

First: It is about 25 chapters too long. Instead of filling extra chapters with bloated, overwritten stuff that drags the plot to a grinding halt, this could have easily been edited down to 25, well-paced, tightly written scenes. I hold the editors and publisher more accountable for this, because its clearly there to beef up the page count. I was ready for the book to be over at the 44% mark, but I soldiered on because I hate writing a review without giving a book the chance to redeem itself. (This book did not.)

Second: Like many YA novels, it falls victim to "writerly writing", full of unnecessary adverbs and awkward cliches. There's sardonic grins, sly looks, scoffing, grinning (sardonic and otherwise), droll smiles, huffing, hissing, glaring, chortling, chuckling, wry smirks, snorts, groans, exclamations, upturned chins, etc. Again: I blame the editor as much as the author. You had ONE job.

Next: The story is told in 3rd person present tense, which is weird for a reader because it sounds like a script. There is also a lot of passive action, instead of active voice. It was also clunky that the main characters parents are consistently called by their first names, because the expository action was overly confusing. There are also very strange turns of language like an " engine kangarooing" or an emotion that "washes over like a suicide" that I guess are supposed to be creative but felt like a reach.

The characters act very unrealistic vs how actual people act (for example, how many families do you know where if one of their children were carried home unconscious from frostbite would be more concerned with making their flight than going to the hospital?) This makes for characters you can't relate to and stakes that only feel high because the author tells you they are.

I am also SO over YA novels creating an aggravating, insulting, condescending, conflict riddled interaction between a male/female pairing and then trying to sell it to us as "romance." I am so tired of seeing a male character talk down to a female (who is usually THE PROTAGONIST), make overly familiar jokes at her expense, yell at her, antagonize her, question her competence.... Only to be rewarded by getting his face kissed. Boring, and honestly really bad for a pre-teen or teen reader because you're basically planting the seed of the idea that men who make you feel bad are boyfriend material. Its the 21st century, come on. Create romantic pairings that defy hetero normative couplings and treat each other well -- aren't those the characters whose faces deserve to be kissed?

By the end of this book I was not invested in any of the characters, and I honestly can't believe there's two more books planned in the series, except I can, because the ending was incredibly unsatisfying and yielded no answers. I won't be along for the ride on the next two, but if this book is your jam, more power to you.

I was excited to get to review my first NetGalley book and was honestly excited about the premise of the book. That being said, I just could not bring myself to finish the book. Although it started strong and had a great "creepy" factor, the book just didn't continue to move at the pace you would expect with a thriller. After that I seemed to get a little lost and my interest was just not maintained. Writing a debut novel is tough and I think the plot had promise, but the execution just was not there for me.

I think that had I not kind of been burned by a couple 'dark fantasies posing as horror stories' already this year, I'd have been a little more okay with WHITELAND, but as it was, when it definitely shifted from a promising horror tilt to something different, I was pretty frustrated. That isn't to say that there isn't promise here, because I think that there is. Cranie-Higgs has taken a unique (at least to me) folklore inspiration and turned it into the start of a fantasy series that may appeal to people, but when you reference EVIL DEAD in a promotional material, I expect you to deliver some serious folk horror with a bit of nasty edge. WHITELAND doesn't have that. Throw in some story telling that feels like it's going in circles, and it just didn't gel for me.

I do think that fans of dark fairytale stories will find something to like in WHITELAND, so I'm not going to write it off completely. But don't go in thinking that it's going to be a horror story, because you will probably be disappointed.

“Anneliese.”

What is in a name you say? Depends on who you ask. For some, it is the name of a murderess. For others, it is the name of a beloved mother.

A holiday for the quintessential modern family turns into a nightmare with a step into the woods and an ending that you will not soon forget.

Going to Switzerland for Christmas was meant to be fun, not end up with a visit to Narnia meets Alice In Wonderland. When Romy is brought back in the arms of a young Scot named Callum after going on a near death excursion to the woods at midnight, she isn’t the same. Although always dark and brooding, this just wasn’t the same! Is this really Romy or someone pretending to be? Kira needs to know and goes on a quest that would take her to a place she would never imagine, not even in her wildest dreams. To Whiteland.

On this journey she meets the unimaginable and sees things she can never unsee or forget. Will she find out who Anneliese is? Why is she so important and more importantly, why is she so important to Kira and her family?

With subtle hints of Scottish wit and dry British humor, this is a book that will keep you coming back for more and make you question whether an ending is ever the end.

I was enjoying the first part of the book, however, as it went on I became disinterested due to it being repetitive & slow. The base story is good and there is a good creep factor going on. The lack of pace resulted my disengagement & also reduced the intensity of the horror feelings. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t for me, however, please read other reviews or just pick up the book, as I think I may be in the minority on this one.

This has such a great and strong beginning, then about 35%-40% through it peters out. I almost DNF, but kept on and then it DID pick back up and I cannot believe how great it got!!

It definitely isn't horror to me, I'd say more thriller than anything, but still worth a read and I recommend it.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to a good scary book -- the cover was cool and the description was interesting. However, when I got into the book it was not at all what I thought. I had many issues with this book, and unfortunately, I don't really have anything positive to say about it. I wish I did, but sadly, there was nothing in this book that would convince me that this was a final draft.

The problems start with the writing, which, while isn't horrible, just feels very juvenile. I like prose filled writing, but the writing in this book was so stitled and awkward, as was the dialogue. It made reading the book very, very difficult.

The other issue is I was bored during this book. So very, very bored. I wanted to be invested, but I didn't like the characters, I didn't like the plot once we got into it. And this was only at 13%! But I decided to give the whole book a go in hopes there was something redeeming. At 30% and then 60% there was nothing that was redeeming. In fact, the whole book felt very disjointed overall. Nothing worked, nothing was cohesive. It was one big mess.

This was not a good book -- it wasn't for me, and I could not recommend it. There were just too many issues.

An innovative mix of horror and fantasy drawn from Scandinavian folklore. Elements of a dark fairy tale that will appeal to teens and young adult. The writing style is a bit different than I've encountered reading other horror novels, A promising start that fades into a slow burn; areas of repetition burden the plot at times. I do recommend this book but its appeal may not be for everyone. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC.

A teenage girl wonders off into the woods and comes back to the hotel where she is staying with her family in Switerland. She should be dead, but instead, she is trapped in a world known as White Land, and she acts like she doesn't want to leave, but you can tell she is trapped and silently crying for the help of her sister. The book was interesting at the beginning...
Until I lost interest... I really tried to get into this book as I am a fan of horror, but all the fantasy mixed in did not interest me in the least. Landscapes that change? Scary horse type creatures? Birds with lighted wings? Ferry type creatures who whisper "Hello"? This was all really too much for me and I was not able to finish this book. I got about halfway through before I finally gave up.
Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to give another honest review.

The initial chapters offered great promise, but overall this novel was quite a disappointment.

To be brief, as I feel this calls for this particular brand of brevity, this folklore-ish read will grab readers at its start only to drag them along for some time. The dialogue is rather off-putting and stilted, and it all feels very Alice and Wonderland without the wonder. Perhaps with more work and in fine-tuning the details, this book could transform into a cohesive and more readable story, but for now, I will rate it at 1 star.

The narration seemed to have a very staccato rhythm that gave the writing an extra momentum and the scenes and setting extra eeriness.

I would recommend this to readers that want to move with the main character through the story.

Unfortunately I was unable to finish this book. The start of it was very good but I lost interest. When I read the synopsis I was very intrigued and excited, but it just wasn’t the book for me. Thank you for letting me read this!

Thank you NetGalley and BHC Press for an arc of this book in exchange for my honest review! I wanted to love this book. So bad. Described as "one of the most unique horror books ever written," the story is certainly a good idea--if you can understand the writing and actually follow what's going on, that is.

Whiteland is compared to "Imaginary Friend by Steven Chbosky and aficionados of Sam Raimi’s cult classic movies The Evil Dead and Drag me to Hell," but it's more of a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (creepy movie version) meets Alice in Wonderland in the snow. It's not scary and only a bit creepy. My problems are less with the story than with the writing, however:

This book reads like no third party outside of the author's social circle ever honestly critiqued it; like it was run through a word processor for grammatical errors but never through a reader's honest gaze to point out weird language, plot holes, and other issues. The writing includes very strange quirks like too many phrases/fragments, dialogue broken by description through a whole paragraph so that the reader has to reread whole paragraphs to follow a conversation, referring to the parents by their first names rather than Mom and Dad so that I was wholly confused for the whole beginning as to who was who, and broken/nonlinear setting descriptions that left me lost trying to picture the story in my mind's eye. The timing is off and unclear which is especially not helpful because time is "off" in Whiteland vs "the outside." The author uses way too many pop culture references that aren't explained and feel out of place and distracting. Because the author is English and I'm American, some of the ways she used words was confusing and I wasn't sure if it was cultural or just the author's style because I've read countless modern and classic British books without feeling so confused by the language. The author uses way too many metaphors using tangible things for intangible feelings but in such a way that I often wasn't sure if something actually happened or if it was indeed a metaphor. Like, fear feeling like being punched in the chest and bleeding, but it wasn't clear whether or not she DID indeed get punched in the chest because of the scene. Does that make sense? It was very weird.

In fact, there's so much description of all the wrong things that the book should have been 150 pages shorter. There's endless description for the fear the protagonist feels but hardly any about what the characters look like. I couldn't picture the village at all. Teenagers are at one point described as "women" and an older woman is described as a "girl," which isn't wrong necessarily but combine that mis-description with all the other strange writing quirks I've mentioned and one can understand how this was very hard to understand.

I liked the characters enough, but the main characters of Callum and Kira seemed like the same person. Their dialogue is cheesy and forced. The sarcasm wasn't written well enough for the reader to easily follow the banter. The plot is fun, but it definitely reads like it's trying too hard to be Alice in Wonderland: cranky characters, which way do we go?, birds, other birds?, weird lights, suddenly wolves, horses, a mist monster that's way too much like the smoke monster from LOST, religious fish. Unfortunately, it was trying way too hard and ultimately was not successful. There were a few symbols that are never explained. Characters that are never properly introduced.

I wanted to stop reading this book at so many points because the writing is poor and strange, but the story is genuinely interesting and I had to see how it wrapped up. The ending? I have no idea what happened. I do not understand the ending at all. I think it's supposed to be a big cliffhanger for the next book, but I don't actually know what was going on. A new-ish character is kind of introduced. The second-to-last scene is not at all wrapped up. I think some of the characters died? One of them was lost, was that character found? Confused!!!!!!

I loathe writing negative reviews. This book really needs more work and has so much potential. It's such a bummer to see that my opinions are echoed in so many other reviews. I hope the author and publisher consider working more on this book before publishing. It's such a shame and waste if not. I usually rate books 1 star when I really dislike them, find something offensive and unhelpful to our culture like gore-porn or something, and think the book should never see the light of day. Whiteland gets 2 stars because it's really a great idea; I don't hate it, it just needs a lot of work. But I don't recommend it.

The premise sounded fantastic. Unfortunately I was unable to finish this book. The writing style did not sit well with me, and although it picked up a little I just wasn’t engaged enough in the story to continue.

I really enjoyed this book. It was full of Intrigue and I was so gripped. I really enjoyed something a bit different because I usually like a romance novel.

This book is exciting and keeps you involved right from the beginning.

Whiteland is a brilliant book and I think the concept of it is so interesting, nothing like I've read before.

The twoing and froing between Kira and Callum is quite amusing in parts and I was looking forward to seeing what was going to happen with them

When Kira is in her dreams I feel like I'm there in her dreams with her, its so we'll written.

I really enjoyed the references to Game of Thrones and Lord of the rings.

Lastly I loved at the end of the book at you find out Whiteland is based where the author lives. It sounds both spooky and beautiful.

I unfortunately could not get into this book and managed only a few chapters before I gave up. The writing style just wasn't for me, or maybe I'm not in the mood for something of its kind. There is an almost a surreal feel to it, like a fever dream and I'm sure someone else will most likely love this book. I will attempt to read it again at a later date.

I really enjoyed the beginning, I loved the beginning. But, after the first start I had a harder time enjoying the book. The book was still a good read but the author did a lot of repetition. A good amount could have been taken off the book and still have the story.
Kira is on a holiday with her family, when her sister disappears twice so Kira teams up with Callum to find her. The people or characters that they meet on their adventure remind me of a mixture of the grims brothers fairy tales and narnia kind of characters. I think that this is a new ground for me because while I have read Stephen King books but I really haven’t read anything Fantasy Horror. I love the creepy eerie feelings, while I do have a lot of hope for the trilogy I think this book has a lot of potential and I am definitely looking forward to finishing the next installment in this series.