Prisoner of Ice and Snow (✮✮✮)
Title: Prisoner of Ice and Snow
Author: Ruth Lauren
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, YA/Teen fiction
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Pages: 288 pages
Publication Date: 4th April 2017
My Rating: 3/5
Hello everyone,
This book was a bit of a whirlwind and something different to my last few reads. The description of the book as being “a thrilling fantasy that’s equal parts Prison Break and Frozen …” isn’t exactly what I’d expect from a children’s book but is somewhat apt. I’m not entirely sure that this book should be classed as children’s honestly, it’s much more teen/YA. Anyhow, on with my review…
I received a free copy of this book by the book’s publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for letting me read this!
You are really thrown straight into the action with this book, which isn’t something I’m used to with the other fantasy YA books I’ve read. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I get like I spent a lot of the book trying to catch up with what’s as going on.
The story begins with Valor, a young girl, who has begun her slightly crazy plan of getting herself thrown into jail. Her sister, Sasha, has been thrown into jail for stealing a prized possession belonging to the royal family. Determined to break her sister free from a jail that nobody has every escaped from, can Valor set her sister free?
It’s a great concept and the plot could have allowed the book to be brilliant. There are plenty of twists and turns to make it exciting but the pace felt a little off. At times it feels like you’re running headfirst into the action then waiting for the next bus to take you further along into the book. I hadn’t realised that this was part of a series so didn’t get the ending completion and sense of resolution that I was expecting but it now makes sense why I did not.
This was a book with a lot of promise and great thinking behind it, which just fell a little short for me. The characters were great but I felt as though we only got to see Valor fully and the other characters had less revealed about them. Due to this being part of a series, this may have been intentional.
A decent read but I’m not sure that I’ll be in any hurry to complete the series.
Would you like a copy?
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Happy reading,
Books and Bookends 