The Drift: A Novel

This book was everything I needed, and it’s everything you’ll need for this upcoming winter season. Light a fire. Grab a blanket. We have a book to discuss.What you need to know:The Retreat: That’s the epicenter of our story, but we get there through a few different pathways:1. A bus going to the Retreat has an accident. There are several fatalities, and the survivors are trapped. The big question, though, is what’s trapped on board with them, and will they survive the impending snowstorm?2. A cable car suspended 1000 feet in the air malfunctions, and again, the passengers are stuck. The big kicker: No one remembers how they got on the cable car. Oh, and one of them may be a murderer—because there’s a body with a suspicious cause of death. It’s the very definition of a locked room mystery.3. The Retreat itself: Who are the occupants, and what do they have to do to survive? These questions have shocking answers. Trust me.Guys, this book is frenzied. It’s chaotic and disorienting. Details swirl about like the snowflakes in a blizzard. Sometimes, it’s hard to find your way in the confusion. We experience the same questions at the same time as the characters, which means we are rewarded with answers when they earn them.When things begin falling into place, GAH! I actually yelled “Oh my gawd!” several times while reading. This is an incredible show of writing chops and imagination. I couldn’t read quickly enough. I never wanted it to end. If I could, I would quite literally shout from the rooftops about this book. I desperately want everyone everywhere to read it. It’s just that good!I dare you to pick this one up, and I dare you to try to put it down. You will not be able to tear yourselves away from it. Every chapter ends with a revelation that will leave you reeling and will force you to keeping turning pages. Resistance is futile. There’s no functioning as a human until you’ve reached the end. Buckle up and bundle up. You have a very chilly and very bumpy road ahead.

It's hard for me to write a review without giving away what happens, so I will skim over things.10 years ago an extremely contagious virus sweeps across the globe, and if you come into contact, it either kills you or renders you into what is referred to as a "whistler." This is the sound that they make trying to breathe. This story is told by three different main characters. Carter is a resident of a hidden retreat in the mountains where they do scientific experimentation to try to conquer this virus. Meg wakes up on a cable car, along with a handful of other characters, while on their way to said retreat. Lastly, Hannah wakes up, along with a group of survivors, on a coach that has crashed on its way to the same retreat. These stories will come full circle by the end with a surprise that I did not see coming.I would not call this a horror per se. I would classify it as a thriller. It's definitely a page-turner and I'm anxious to see what they do with it when it becomes a television mini series. I can definitely recommend it, that's for sure! My first Tudor book but I'll certainly be reading more!

I read a bunch of reviews praising the originality and creativity of C.J. Tudor's new novel The Drift. So I was disappointed when I began reading to find that it was a bog-standard viral apocalypse novel.The story unfolds in three threads told from three points of view: Hannah, Meg, and Carter. Hannah and Meg were on their way to a place called "The Retreat" (Carter is already there) when a mishap halted their transportation and trapped them inside in a snowstorm. Hannah is trapped in a crashed school bus. Meg is trapped in a stalled cable car suspended above a mountain. There are several other people in the bus and the cable car.This was my first, relatively minor problem with The Drift. The Hannah and Meg threads were almost interchangeable. In each vehicle we have our intrepid point-of-view narrator, our take-charge young man, and our annoying whiny young woman. As I read, I literally had difficulty keeping straight which particular whiny young woman and take-charge guy we were hearing from at any given moment. They became somewhat more distinct later.Everyone lives in a world with a deadly (74% lethal) and extraordinarily contagious virus, for which there is no vaccine and essentially no treatment, once symptoms appear. This virus has already brought about a collapse of civilization. Everyone in the story is worried about infection. In fact, we quickly learn that some are already infected.I could not find anyone to like or admire. The characters are ruthless, beweaponed and very, very violent. Also, they are selfish. If The Drift has anything that can be called an "ethic", it is this: "Do ANYTHING you must to survive." In the world of The Drift, survival is the only virtue. "You're either a good guy or a survivor" is a thought that appears multiple times. Since everyone is in danger and they have limited resources, this leads to a lot of conflict -- the familiar post-apocalypse novel playbook.The book was rescued somewhat by the way it ended -- the way Tudor brought her three threads together. It turns out she was playing a trick on us right from the beginning. She reveals the trick near the end and then the story mostly makes sense. It was a good trick and fooled me (I didn't really start to figure it out until about the 80% mark), so for that I will give The Drift three stars.So, to summarize, we have here a violent viral apocalypse novel with one redeeming feature: a clever story-telling trick.I thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an advance reader copy of The Drift. This review expresses my honest opinions.

The Drift. A horrifying dystopian, chilling thriller. Skillfully written, it's claustrophobic, and terrifying. An overturned coach full of students, some already dead. A cable car perilously suspended over mountainous terrain, a group of strangers trapped inside with a unknown killer. And a remote outpost, the team inside desperate to survive at all costs. While surrounded by deadly snowstorms and zombies.All three events are connected somehow. A well paced gripping page turner. Highly Recommens.

C.J. Tudor is one of my favorite thriller author and she has delivered a chilling story yet again. Soo good!!

Another fantastic book from CJ Tudor. Twists and turns all the way made it impossible to put down.

Suspenseful to the end.

Wow, talk about something different! This was my first dystopian thriller and I wasn’t expecting this from C.J. Tudor.For all of you watching The Last of Us, you’re going to love this one!In some snowy place and some time in the future, Covid is but a distant memory. Now the world is battling the deadliest virus to ever hit the earth. One that is airborne and that turns you into some kind of zombie when infected. The government has turned nasty and created, among other things, a retreat where they extract plasma from the infected and vaccinate a selected few every few weeks.Tudor introduces the reader to this bleak world in three separate stories that collide in the end. In each of them there is a terrifying reality in which our MCs struggle to stay alive.It’s a chilling read packed with action, with some truly gruesome scenes.A future none of us would ever want to see, but one that is frighteningly familiar after Covid.My only complaint was that Tudor left much to the imagination as to the how and why! I would have loved more backstory and to see the wider picture. Instead we get a very claustrophobic glance of what the world has become, without ever giving us the full story or a glimmer of hope for the future. But that’s just me and I guess it was intentional!