The Shuddering

This was a horror story with a soap opera plot. It reminded me a lot of the many horror B movies where a group of snarky yuppies gather somewhere for a weekend and are picked off one by one by the flavor-of-the-week monster. Do real people constantly chew their bottom lip or the inside of their cheek to relieve stress? Well these fairly unlikable characters do, a lot. From wealthy roots, twins Ryan and Jane, Jane's friend Lauren and Ryan's dog Oona have traveled to the twin's divorced father's large, luxurious cabin in Colorado's San Juan mountains for some winter snowboarding. This is to be one last get together before Ryan leaves for his new business and life in the Swiss Alps. Ryan has invited his best friend Sawyer to join them at the cabin and he is bringing along his soon-to-be bride April. Tension arises from the fact that Jane and Sawyer had been together through most of high school and even though both have lived separate lives since, they never really stopped loving each other. April is not into snowboarding and jealousy soon arises as she becomes the fifth wheel of the group and can see the obvious lingering attraction between Jane and Sawyer. But what about the horror? Oh yeah, there are horrible packs of humanoid creatures with beady eyes and huge claws and teeth running around the surrounding forest killing and eating anything with a pulse. Of course after the small group is snowed in by a freak winter blizzard they become fair game for the hungry humanoids. I found this story to be a stale, generic monster tale that included too much of the soap opera for my taste. The characters are unlikable to the point that I was rooting for the monsters to make short work of them. And, the reader is never given any real origin background for where these creatures came from. I am surprised this book often comes up on the to-be-read horror list of books.