Recently, I was walking through Barnes and Noble looking at the books and Five Total Stangers by Natalie D. Richards caught my eye. I saw the cover and was immediately interested. I like a good young adult mystery and the summary seemed interesting. Unfortunately, the book ended up having static characters with a subpar plot. Overall I’d give this book 2/5 stars.
PREMISE
She thought being stranded was the worst thing that could happen. She was wrong.
Mira needs to get home for the holidays. Badly. But when an incoming blizzard results in a canceled connecting flight, it looks like she might get stuck at the airport indefinitely.
And then Harper, Mira’s glamorous seatmate from her initial flight, offers her a ride. Harper and her three friends can drop Mira off on their way home. But as they set off, Mira realizes fellow travelers are all total strangers. And every one of them is hiding something.
Soon, roads go from slippery to terrifying. People’s belongings are mysteriously disappearing. Someone in the car is clearly lying, and may even be sabotaging the trip—but why? And can Mira make it home alive, or will this nightmare drive turn fatal?
MY THOUGHTS
The Characters
The reason this book fell apart for me was the characters. In a mystery piece, having interesting and dynamic characters is integral because it makes you care about them and want to solve the case. Unfortunately all of the characters fall fairly flat.
- Mira’s, the main character, motivation throughout the book is simply getting home. She wants to support her mom since it is the anniversary of her aunt’s death. Despite this detail, her willingness to risk her life is simply unfounded.
The other ensemble characters are also unfortunately basic. (SPOILERS AHEAD)
- Beckingham is a rich, semi-mysonginstic, try-hard. His big climax is admitting that he is failing his classes and may not be able to become a doctor. His family has a istory in this profession making him feel like a failure. He also doesn’t grow at all throughout the book, and instead continuously makes dumb-headed decisions.
- Harper is also very one-sided. She treats Mira like she’s made of glass and takes special effort to care for her. She is going through some family troubles but this information is COMPLETELY glossed over and brought up once.
- Don’t even get me started on Kayla. She sleeps through the majority of the book and offers very little. It is revealed that she is using drugs which is why she is so worn out and bitchy. She is the most pointless character because she adds nothing to the entire book.
- Josh… dear old Josh, where to start? What is disappointing is that this character feels like one that could have been the most developed. He befriends Mira, and seems like the nice guy (which should be your first hint). He, of course, ends up being the sabatour of the trip. This could have been well done, if they had given him any reason for being obsessed with Mira. Instead the book explains that he saw her once, and fell in love thereby stalking her. Very reminiscent of Netflix’s, You, since he creates a whole non-existant relationship in his head. He ends up being simply crazy and obsessive and is killed off in one of the final scenes.
My body still senses danger. And maybe that’s because the danger has been with us all along. My gaze drifts over each of my fellow travelers… We’re all trying to get home.
Unless we’re not.
Mira Hayes
Plot
I actually think this plot had a lot of potential. The biggest issues are that it moved too slow and wasn’t based on ANY logic. The whole beginning revolves more around our protagonists driving in awful weather than any sabotaging. The only sketchy stuff that happens for a while is that the passengers’ stuff is going missing (a wallet, a phone, a book, a charger, and pills). It does pick up in the end, but it takes a LONG time to get there.
I hate plots that start due to dumb decisions, which may be why I had issues with this book. Mira decides to ride with a bunch of strangers in a predicted snow storm in order to get home. See the issues there? She assumes that Harper, Brecken, Josh, and Kayla know each other for no reason. In the end, getting home for her mom wasn’t even a big deal.
There were also a few plot holes that I noticed when I finished reading. Such as why did Harper reach out to all the strangers to ride together. She connected with Brecken when she was in line to buy the rental car. While, she and Mira sat together on the plane and bonded. But it’s never really explained why Josh and Kayla were included in the car. This is a huge plot hole since Josh ended up being the villain and Kayla helped him (since he bribed her with drugs). This is random, but I also still don’t understand the inclusion of the yellow hatted hitch-hiker.
I will give the author credit for not making Harper the villain. That reveal would have been too obvious and ruined the book. Therefore I am glad it was Josh. I liked the detail of him faking his injury the whole time. If they had given him a stronger reason for the obsession, the ending would have been much more gratifying.
OVERALL
The book was an okay read, but definitely not one I would go out of my way to recommend. The writing was good but the plot and characters sank it.