I truly wanted to love this book.
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I’d searched feverishly for a young adult book with a Christmas theme, just so I could review it in December. It would also be my give-away book—a prize to one of my readers. This one even had hundreds of positive reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. But I didn’t love it. In fact, I tossed it aside after the first two chapters and didn’t pick it up until a month later, when I’d exhausted my resources trying to find a different Christmas YA read.
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After forcing myself to sit my rear-end on a chair and finish it, I came away with an appreciation of all the positives of A Soul as Cold as Frost. First and foremost, it’s an explosion of Christmas to the senses. You can taste the sharpness of the peppermint, feel the icy air, smell the golden aroma of spicy gingerbread. Also, it’s intensely creative. I give the author high marks for the gorgeous alternate world she created in this magical portal adventure.
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The story is told from the point of view of a mousy-haired, timid-yet-slightly-rebellious teen named Helen Bell. She meets all the criteria for a YA heroine—loss of parents, thrust into poverty, bullied at school. The adventure begins when a magical orb is dropped into her possession, thrusting her into a situation where she alone can save the world of “Winter”. She meets up with my favorite character in this book, Zane, who is sworn to protect the “carrier of the orb”. He’s everything his name implies, zany and quirky with ferocious magic. Edged with allegory, like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, this adds to the enjoyment of reading as you find yourself trying to figure out what everything represents.
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You’re probably wondering, “That sounds great. What could be wrong with this book?” Really just one thing that may be small to others but is a big deal to me: The characters lacked a clear goal, aside from protecting the orb, which led me not to be invested in their tale. In that way, it reminded me a lot of Alice in Wonderland, with a string of wild adventures but no driving purpose to keep the reader engaged. They had to protect the orb, but why? It represented truth, the last truth in the world, but I didn’t really know what would happen if it was destroyed.
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I am just one reviewer, and a super picky reader, I’ve been told. This book has many redeeming values and beautiful, underlying truths. I just wish the writer made me care more about them. I’m giving this book three and a half stars. |