Scholastic Red Eye Horror: Frozen Charlotte
459 ratings
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Price: £6.39
Brand: Scholastic
Description: Following the sudden death of her best friend, Sophie hopes that spending the summer with family on a remote Scottish island will be just what she needs. But the old schoolhouse, with its tragic history, is anything but an escape. History is about to repeat itself. And Sophie is in terrible danger. Scholastic Red Eye Horror: Frozen Charlotte - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Scholastic
Product ID: 102288
ISBN: 9781847154538
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Author: S. Shamma
Rating: 5
Review: This is the perfect time of year to read this book if you're interested in a spine-tingling, bone-chilling, good ol' classic horror tale! Although, if you read it at any other time of year, it will still be just as frighteningly creepy! I love books that really get to you to the point where you actually end up looking over your shoulder and losing sleep over them. That's how much this book affected me. It's been a long time since I read a good thriller, in which I was truly scared to flip the page and read what happens next. When you watch a movie, you have the option of covering your eyes through the scary bits, but what do you do when you're reading a book? That night, I couldn't go to sleep until I had finished it, and I made my husband stay up with me until I did. Except, he didn't - he couldn't. So I read the book while he slept soundly next to me and I held his arm in a death grip. The creepiness levels of the book are super high, which is amazing for this genre, because it's not always easy to achieve the 'shivers-down-your-back' sensation. From the very beginning, when Sophie is sitting with her best friend Jay in a diner and he presents her with an app of a Ouija board, you know things are not going to end well. Nothing ever ends well with a Ouija board! Sophie can't take him seriously, but humors him, and soon after the lights in the diner go off, and while chaos ensues, Sophie could swear she could see a little girl standing on the table. When they lights are back on, Sophie and Jay both brush the whole thing off as a coincidence, and call it a night. Except, the next morning, Sophie is told that Jay had died in an accident on his way home. Her parents had planned on going on a trip and dropping her off to her uncle's house, but upon hearing the news of Jay, they tell her they will cancel and stay with her. Sophie stubbornly refuses, and tells them she needs the space right now, so spending time at her uncle's on the Isle of Skye is perfect. Now, I don't know, if as a parent, seeing my child's grief, I would have gone and left them, regardless of how much I paid for a ticket. However, for the purposes of this story, I let that one slide and just enjoyed it. So Sophie arrives at her uncle's house, which used to be a girls schoolhouse that was shut down after a series of murders had occurred, to spend the summer with her cousins - Cameron, Piper and Lilias. There also used to be a fourth cousin, Rebecca, but she died in an accident and they don't talk about her. Sophie can immediately sense something's off about this entire place, but can't put her finger on it, and assumes this is just her grief and guilt over Jay's death creating all these dark and somber images. She immediately hits it off with Piper, who is always exuding charm and positivity as she takes over as host and prepares the food and shows her around. Cameron, on the other hand, is more of a recluse and not particularly friendly either, self-conscious about his scarred hand and bitter about the fact that he can't play the piano anymore. For all his cold and hard demeanor, he immediately softens when he sees his youngest sister, Lilias, and Sophie notices how protective he is of her. Lilias has an unreasonable fear of bones, so much so, that all knives and sharp tools must be hidden as she has a tendency to want to cut her bones out of her body. Rebecca? No one speaks of Rebecca. No one is allowed entry into her room, which is filled with a creepy collection of antique dolls that Rebecca used to love and play with. That first night, Sophie could hear voices coming out of Rebecca's room, and tries to investigate. She later finds out that Lilias can hear them too, and she knows who these voices belong to. The dolls. The dolls are speaking to her, luring her, but she tells Sophie she has to ignore them, she can't listen to the dolls because they tell her to do bad things. Ouija board, ghost of a little girl, creepy talking dolls, and an old house full of weirdos? Yep. You got yourself a recipe for disaster. One that will scare the living daylights out of you. As the events unfold, and things reach a climax, we start to figure out who's who, what's going on, who's orchestrating the whole thing, why is the ghost haunting Sophie, and who's going to die next? If I were Sophie, I would've left as soon as I realized things weren't normal at this household. Sophie is a stubborn one though, and she's somehow convinced that figuring out what's happening will help her figure out what happened to her best friend, Jay. The ending was written brilliantly, and had all the right elements to cause you fear and panic, as well as that rush of adrenaline you get when you know the whole gig is up. I recently found out that a prequel had been released, and I've immediately ordered it! Just the thing I need for this season, so I can't wait to receive it.
Author: Zaide Nicholas
Rating: 3
Review: Frozen Charlotte was a delightfully quick spooky read. Set in an only schoolhouse now serving as a home to her uncle and cousins, Sophie comes face to face with the mysterious death of her young cousin and the legend of the schoolhouse and its creepy Frozen Charlotte dolls. I did enjoy this one, there's a nice balance of mystery and horror, and I'm the sort of person who finds creepy dolls absolutely terrifying. The characters were intriguing and each had secrets and issues of their own. Cameron is a musical prodigy whose dreams were dashed after he damaged his hand saving his little sister from a fire, and who now hides a darker side. Lilias was born into a family who had been truck by tragedy, she struggles with a debilitating fear of bones and sees the ghost of her dead sister. Piper seems friendly and kind on the outside, the one holding her damaged family together, but cracks start to show in her facade and you're left wondering if she's really as nice as she seems. The Frozen Charlotte dolls aren't the only villains in this story and Sophie struggles to learn who to trust after getting conflicting information from Piper, Cameron and Lilias. I will say that I was expecting a bit more of a twist to the story. After the build up and how much effort the author had gone through to confuse Sophie on who she should trust, the person responsible seemed a bit obvious long before it was revealed. I also found the villain scarier than the dolls. It was almost like the person was controlling the dolls rather than the other way around and that took a bit of the creepiness away from them. There was a shocking lack of parenting in this book. Sophie's uncle James was absolutely useless in controlling his children or dealing with the events that happened in the book. I appreciate that he's suffered the loss of a child and his wife has been committed, but he should still be putting the welfare of his remaining children before everything else. He seemed more interested in his paintings than making sure they were ok. My other complaint was the ending. After all the build-up I was hoping for a little more than a cautious bit of hand-holding between Sophie and Cameron and the ending related to the dolls was also left pretty open which I'm not really a fan of - I know this is personal preference, I have a friend who also read this and really liked the way it ended for the dolls, but I prefer something with closure. Overall Frozen Charlotte was a delightfully spooky read with some family mystery laced in with the horror. It's a fast-paced page turner and I would definitely recommend this to YA horror fans.
