Outside is a bone-chilling, hair-raising mystery that will have you making hot cocoa and curling up in warm sheets courtesy of Ragnar Jonasson’s haunting descriptions of the cold Icelandic setting. Beware, Jonasson’s manner of establishing a sinister and devious situation with relatable and deeply disturbing characters makes Outside the perfect story to read during nighttime.
Picture a dangerous and heavy snowstorm raging down upon a small hut in the middle of nowhere, trapping 4 friends in for a long haul. Seems pretty harmless, until the secrets start flowing into the open and suddenly nothing is what it seems and no one is who they say they are. Was it fate that they ended up in that hut, and do they have company, are just two of the many more burning questions you’ll have while breezing through this relentless mystery that turns darker by each page.
Jonasson excels at crafting realistic and resonating multi-layered characters that elevate the stakes to dangerously addictive levels for the readers, enchanting and destroying the readers simultaneously with horrible acts that are not too far from what we see in society today. There is a pungent aura of mystique and unsettling climax as the narrative progresses via POVs of each of the 4 characters, keeping your imagination running wild as you wrack your brain to figure out the mystery before its too late for the characters you’re rooting for.
Outside is a magnificent whodunnit story of grief, bad choices, and human nature that speaks to readers on a personal level. The resolution is sure to cause division among readers; Jonasson does not offer a clean ending but rather settles the major premise of the book, leaving the rest to the imagination of the readers. It caught me off guard but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense for a confined-setting story set completely in one location. I would not be surprised if this is picked up for a movie adaptation, it certainly embodies the cinematic charisma.
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