Title: Frost
Author: Kate Avery Ellison
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Create Space/Self Pub
Publication Date: March 29, 2012
eBook: 215 pages
Where’d I Get It: For review from the author/AToMR book tour.
Synopsis (From Goodreads): In the icy, monster-plagued world of the Frost, one wrong move and a person could end up dead—and Lia Weaver knows this better than anyone. After monsters kill her parents, she must keep the family farm running despite the freezing cold and threat of monster attacks or risk losing her siblings to reassignment by the village Elders. With dangers on all sides and failure just one wrong step away, she can’t afford to let her emotions lead her astray. So when her sister finds a fugitive bleeding to death in the forest—a young stranger named Gabe—Lia surprises herself and does the unthinkable.
She saves his life.
My Thoughts: I have been burned so many times by self published books in the past, that I put off reading this one for this tour until the absolute last moment. I can honestly say that 1) I’m pleasantly surprised and 2) I’m glad I didn’t flake out and skip reading it.
The story is FUN! It’s not your every day YA novel that follows the same themes that every other YA novel follows. Or, well, I guess it does – but in a way that makes you feel as though you’re reading something fresh. I can dig that.
There’s a love triangle of doom – and we all know I loathe those things – but this one is done in such a way that I didn’t want to claw my eyes out. It was believable and pertinent to the story, so I won’t knock it.
I will say that some of the plot is predictable, but not in a way that is obnoxious. The author’s writing style is easy to read and easy to follow and the novel is fairly well edited.
This would have received 4 stars, but I think the lack of overall polish in the story, and a significant amount of missing detail (so many points could have been developed a little more!) made me have to yank one. S’ok, though, I’ll still read the next in the series.
Rating: 3 of 5
