"Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It has no plan, no point, no hidden mysteries that make up for the oh-so-obvious miseries and banalities."
 
Sir John Franklin leads an expedition to locate the Northwest Passage on board HMS Terror. When he dies, Captain Francis Crozier takes command of the surviving crewmen. Plagued by scurvy and starvation, the men fear there is no escape and something is lurking through the wintery landscape.
 
This is a fictional account of the lost expedition to the Arctic between 1845-1848. Simmons created a very atmospheric and chilling story based on that real event, besides the monster of course. Imagine the fear whilst on an expedition stuck in ice tackling the cold weather, isolation, illness, and trying to survive while also battling a creature stalking you along the way 🥶
 
There was an abundance of likeable and unlikeable characters throughout this book. It was initially difficult trying to remember who was who, which ship they belonged to, who was loyal, etc. However, there were some prominent characters (whose names I've already forgotten 😂) I came to love, rooting for them all the way. And whatever that animalistic creature was sounded very grisly and creepy. I'm not going to lie, but the parts I enjoyed the most were the brutal, gory bits involving the creature!
 
This is in no means a bad book, but I personally feel like it was very drawn out and at times found myself uninterested. I was told that the story is about the journey itself, which I completely understand. It was a long, frightening voyage filled with hope, bravery, mutiny, and questioning morals (insert cannibalism here).