The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean

• Pub. Date: December 2008
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pages: 400

Rating: 5/5

 

Synopsis

Sym is not your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears.
But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed--and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.

Review 

I don't know what it is about this book, but I really, really, really enjoyed it. It was sad and horrifying on a level that I could never have imagined when I picked it up. I thought it would be light and fluffy reading but it was everything BUT that. 

Sym, to start with, is an interesting lead character, and it truly makes the story. No other teenage girl would have been able to take this journey and go as far as she did. Not to mention, her imaginary boyfriend is a freaking dead guy. AND just about everything else in her life is screwed up (oh, don't we all miss our teens???), even more so than most teenagers. You think all of this would make a deafeningly sad book, but that isn't the case at all! I described it as sad because of the human instinct that is portrayed in the extreme circumstances the author presents. That's also where the 'horrifying' comes from. I'm pretty sure the last 50 pages (or was it 100?) I was slack-jawed by the storyline. Don't pass this one up!!! It is definitely worth the read.