Frostbitten revolves around Anastasia Lockhart, a 'rebellious' teen who is sent to live with her grandparents in the supposedly sleepy and snowy town of Cedar Falls. From the off we are presented with a girl who has made bad choices in her life. She is failing at school and has fallen into bad company. She hopes to find herself again with the people and the place that hold her happiest memories. It does not turn out that way. A bad first day at school and several nasty rumors later, she soon latches onto Frost, the handsome yet somewhat ostracised son of local hardware merchant.
This could have been a five star book. It had a great setting of a snow bound town in the woods. It had a great main character in the guise of a rebel trying to retrieve her life. There was also the romance which involved a werewolf lover that locals want to kill. Unfortunately it did not quite match these promises. The main character was far too bland to be the rebel that the text told me about. I expected more fire, more temper... in fact I expected physical violence a lot earlier in the book than when it actually happened.
Part of the problem revolved about the town. Now this might be what happens in small American/Canadian towns but the amount of bullying she receives seems completely over the top and for no real reason. Her grandfather is against everything and doesn't listen to anything, again for no real reason and the main character is quite happy to run off and live in the woods with a boy she barely knows. More than anything else, the motivations of these characters felt hollow and not particularly real. I appreciate that people do bully excessively but not after one meeting and not stupidly. In addition the sheep like mentality of the student body was strange and far too one note (The reaction to the rumour involving her and her teacher was ludicrous and totally unbelievable particularly as they had only met the once) That also holds true for the inability of teachers to realise who the problematic pupil is, despite the obvious display before their eyes.
Having said all that however, the writing is great and the book held my interest. I did want to know how things would turn out and I happily read to the end in a very short space of time. I would recommend this book to lovers of Young Adult fiction.
****
This could have been a five star book. It had a great setting of a snow bound town in the woods. It had a great main character in the guise of a rebel trying to retrieve her life. There was also the romance which involved a werewolf lover that locals want to kill. Unfortunately it did not quite match these promises. The main character was far too bland to be the rebel that the text told me about. I expected more fire, more temper... in fact I expected physical violence a lot earlier in the book than when it actually happened.
Part of the problem revolved about the town. Now this might be what happens in small American/Canadian towns but the amount of bullying she receives seems completely over the top and for no real reason. Her grandfather is against everything and doesn't listen to anything, again for no real reason and the main character is quite happy to run off and live in the woods with a boy she barely knows. More than anything else, the motivations of these characters felt hollow and not particularly real. I appreciate that people do bully excessively but not after one meeting and not stupidly. In addition the sheep like mentality of the student body was strange and far too one note (The reaction to the rumour involving her and her teacher was ludicrous and totally unbelievable particularly as they had only met the once) That also holds true for the inability of teachers to realise who the problematic pupil is, despite the obvious display before their eyes.
Having said all that however, the writing is great and the book held my interest. I did want to know how things would turn out and I happily read to the end in a very short space of time. I would recommend this book to lovers of Young Adult fiction.
****
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