A Book Review of Shutter by Courtney Alemeda

(Cover of Shutter by Courtney Alemeda)
Book Review by Hali Paige.
Final Review: 3.5/5

Oh gosh, where do I begin? I'll start off as saying I will (attempt) to make this book as spoiler free as possible, since this is my first "official" book review, I don't know how well I'll manage not letting anything leak.
The book centers around Micheline Helsing, a descendant of the famous Van Helsing, she has lived her whole life fighting demons and ghosts alongside her team, Ryder, Oliver, and Jude. Micheline is what this book calls a "tetrachromat", which is someone who can see the auras of ghosts on the color spectrum. Ryder, her teammate and love interest, is a Reaper, who is someone who is trained to kill ghosts, mainly with special op guns. Oliver is the scientist of the group, he typically doesn't do the actual fighting, but sits back and plans the teams moves. He also works as a scientist in the Corps lab. Last but certainly not least is Jude, who possesses a sixth sense as a sort, and is able to tell things such as if people are lying and is able to see the future to some extent? I don't know, it's a bit confusing. These teenage monster hunters work together as a team on the corps, a sort of military based group whose sole purpose is to rid the world of monsters.
One night, a monster hunt goes wrong and Micheline and her team gets infected with Soulchain, a curse that can only be broken by killing the ghost demon who gave it to her. After the vicious fiend flees the scene, it is up to Micheline and her crew to find and kill this horrid monster before it is too late.


Overall I found this book to be a quick and enjoyable read. I work full time and go to school full time, so it's hard to fit reading in sometimes, but I managed to read this one within four days. Although some parts were slow and a little confusing at time, it was overall an enjoyable read. However, one of the things I couldn't get over was that the story didn't dwelve into as much detail as I would have liked to see it do. For example, Jude is a seer, however Jude sees things more along the lines of "when the situation permits" and I wish Alemeda would have went into a more descriptive detail about that.

Another things I couldn't get over was Micheline's Dad. Micheline and her Dad are the only remaining of the Helsing heritage, so Mr. Helsing holds unrealistic expectations to his daughter, one of those being when she turns 18, he essentially plans on bidding her off to another person with monster-fighting bloodline to go make babies with. I personally had a really big problem with this, because what real Father treats their child like a baby making machine. Throughout the whole novel he shows signs of abuse towards Micheline, yet gets redeemed near the end. I found that kind of unfair because I felt like he didn't deserve the ending he received.

This book has the potential to have a sequel, however after googling some interviews with the author and doing my research, the Author hasn't exactly made plans for one (this book was published in 2014 for reference), yet there are SO MANY loose ends and questions left that have yet to get answered. For example, was Luca the ghost who he really said he was? Who killed Micheline's mother? What role did Fielding play in summoning the demon, if he had any role at all? How big is this underground cult? What was the full intentions of Luca's plans? He never told us what he was going to do if he succeeded in escaping Obscura. Also, Micheline vows at the end to avenge her Mother, BUT THERE IS NO SEQUEL! Come one Courtney! We deserve to know! I felt like the conclusion wasn't really a conclusion at all, so for that I knocked down a star because even if we got a sequel, there was too many questions left unanswered.

Like any YA novel, there is the love interest between Micheline and her badass Australian teammate Ryder. Her Dad forbids them from dating because Ryder isn't of royal monster hunting bloodline descent, so there was this whole "I want to love him, he deserves my love, but I'm not sure if we should do this because I might lose him" sort of vibe throughout the novel, and honestly I dig it. They're really good for each other. While I didn't invest my time in this ship like some others (Percabeth for life), I still ship it. However, I feel like Kennedy, one of her Dad's men who he wanted to see her fall in love with, sort of got the sh*t end of the deal.

When he comes to Micheline offering assistance in her rebel cause, Micheline ties him up and accuses him of being one of her Dad's pawns, even though he shows up with no weapons or walkie talkie wires to inform her Dad of his location. Kennedy (sort of) admits he showed up because he wanted to help save Micheline, not because he is one of the men her Dad considered marrying her off to. Personally, I don't blame Micheline for going off and tying him up as her hostage, especially when her Dad treats her as a tool to carry on the bloodline and nothing more. However, part of me felt like Kennedy was genuine in his request to help, and I felt like maybe he really did love Micheline. I felt like the author could have easily went into further detail about this, or saved it for a really good love triangle in a sequel.

All in all, I enjoyed the reading. It was a good story, and the twisted ending I didn't expect was really good, however there was way too many loose ends. I also felt like the novel was a little rushed and not as detailed as it could have been. However, this was Courtney Alemeda's first novel. She is still fairly new to the writing realm. I just feel like the book itself should have A.) been more detailed and B.) at least included a confirmed sequel with that many loose ends

Overall, I would indeed recommend this book to people who are looking for an action packed read (I found it more adventure and action than I did horror), however it's not on my favorite list by a longshot, but Courtney Alemeda does indeed have my seal of approval :)