Review: Whiteout by Adriana Anders
I was absolutely sure I was going to be totally in love with this book. Clearly I misjudged this.
This book follows Angel and Ford, two people living in Antarctica. Angel is a chef who is preparing to leave Antarctica for the winter, and Ford a scientist who is planning on staying over winter with a skeleton crew. Fords science work leads him and some ice cores he collected to be targeted by a group of people bent on biological warfare and eugenics. Do to an intense series of events Ford and Angel have to trek across the Antarctic in the winter in hopes of both saving themselves and preventing the baddies from getting the ice cores.
There were some thing I liked about this book! I really did enjoy some of the action scenes in the first 25% of the book. Particularly the extended section where Angel discovers the nefarious actions being taken. I thought this part of the book was pretty engaging and did make me keep turning the page. I also liked some of the trekking across the Antarctic, though I would have liked a little more from this part of the book. I did like the slightly nihilist jokes Ford made during this part of the book, it was legitimately funny. That could just be because this was the part I was the most interested in. I also liked the way this book took environmental conservation pretty seriously, the pair discuss not leaving waste in the Antarctic despite the fact that they are literally running for their lives. I also liked that Angel talked about having an IUD.
Starting out I was immediately annoyed by the way the author presents an atheist in a deadly situation, I just get annoyed when people present skeptics in ways I do not find accurate, but this character dies like a page later so it never came up again, I absolutely would not remember being annoyed by this if I didn't make a note as I was reading.
There were a lot of things that I disliked about Angel and Ford while I was reading. First off Anders often uses traditionally masculine descriptors when talking about Angel but is VERY clear that she is talking about her emotions and interior life and absolutely not her physical appearance. This was also paired with Angel being one of the most maternal heroines I have ever read. About half way through the book Ford stops using traditionally masculine descriptors for her at all, and is suddenly only focused on her "softness" emotionally and physically. Her maternal qualities are first highlighted right after Ford reveals he never knew his own mother, I personally found that justoposition very unromantic. I am not reading romance to reinforce the idea that women exist to take care of men, I want parity not parenting.
Angel is a chef and it is made very palin that she does not really have any ambition in this career, she is just intensely caring and expresses this through food. I was already annoyed that Angel seems to only exist to be a caring angel towards Ford so when her outside goals were removed I was almost upset by how incredibly conservative the gender roles in this book were. It truly feels dated and I was surprised by the way it was handled throughout he book.
Also, for a book about a chef the food descriptions are absolutely lackluster. In Angel's POV and in Ford's food is just described terribly. I normally love books using food as a way to show care for other people, but it did not work for me in this book at all.
This book is also pretty ableist. Angel has an old injury and is explicitly stated to not be in any condition that would prepare her to trek across the antartic. But because she "wants it" enough she is magically able to handle the tundra. I just think the logical conclusion to this line of thought is that disabled people die because they did not want health enough, and I really hate the casual way this philosophy is presented in a book where the bad guys seems to literally want to do eugenics. It is just incredibly unself aware writing. The low key ableism is repeated later in the book when Ford is overcoming physical pain. Also, the author pretty explicitly states that Angel is fat (but of course does not use the word fat) because she likes food too much, I obviously hate this too. There is also a minor character who seemed to be poorly coded as autistic.
I do not think that Angel and Ford had enough internal conflict. I generally did not find them to be a compelling couple in any way, but I do think the very mild conflict in a very high stakes scenario was a factor in this. I specifically wanted them to disagree more about what they should do with the ice cores, it kept seeming like Anders was setting them up to be conflicted over this and then they just never were.
This book is a romantic suspense that I found neither romantic nor suspenseful after the first 30%. It was shocking how uninteresting I found all of the action in this book. I am normally so easily compelled by thrillers, I was legitimately surprised and confused by my complete lack of interest in this book.
At about the 65% mark the story leaves Antarctica, which did completely remove my last shreds of interest from this story. I really did not find these characters at all compelling so when the setting, the most interesting thing about the book for me, was changed I just could not figure out a way to care any longer.
I found the ending saccharine and nonsensical. I do not understand why these people would like each other outside of a trauma bond. But sure. I am sad I didn't like this book, I was so sure I would love it.
I gave this book one star.
