Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards

Usually when I read isolation thrillers the characters are trapped in one place. In this book the five characters are trapped but in a car where they are constantly on the move.

Mira is a high school student pretending to be in college so that she can catch a ride with four strangers after a blizzard cancels her flight home for Christmas. Each of these strangers have secrets and one of them may be deadly.

As Mira, Harper, Josh, Brecken, and Kayla make one bad decision after another the stakes get higher as the snow gets deeper. Mira’s only desire is to get home to her Mom for Christmas but someone wants to make sure that this car full of strangers doesn’t find its way home.

Lots of suspects here. The strange man in the yellow hat who keeps showing up, Josh is a little too good to be true, Brecken is angry at everything, Kayla is strung out and secretive, and Harper is a little too friendly to be real.

I did see the ending coming but Richards threw in enough red herrings to keep me second guessing. I think young adults would love this one, but I’m going to stick to adult thrillers as the choices made by people whose frontal cortex isn’t fully developed is frustrating to say the least.

Great YA read if you are a young adult. For me it took a little too long to get to the end but tied up nicely when it did get there.

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