Novella Review: Before the Snow (Stealing Snow #0.1)

Release Date: July 26, 2016
Author: Danielle Paige
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's
Length: 81 pages
Source: Library eBook

Enter a world of elemental magic, forbidden romance, and betrayal in this prequel to New York Times bestselling author Danielle Paige's upcoming Stealing Snow.

Young Nepenthe is half-princess, half-mermaid. Though she longs for the sea, her father wants her to stay on land. But only love can make a mermaid give up the water, and Nepenthe doesn't love anyone the way her mother loves her human father. She wants to live as a mermaid and become the River Witch, like her mother.

Then Nepenthe meets Prince Lazar, the son of the all-powerful Snow King of Algid, and she can't help but fall for him. After a horrible tragedy strikes, Nepenthe joins forces with a young fire witch named Ora to save Lazar and protect the kingdom. But it soon becomes clear that Ora loves Lazar just as much as Nepenthe does... And now Nepenthe must decide: inherit the power of the River Witch, or betray her friend to be with the boy she loves.

And Nepenthe's role in the prophecy is only just beginning. . . In the future, she is destined to cross paths with a girl named Snow, who will have the power to change Algid forever - for better, or for worse.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Nepenthe has lived her whole life with a choice hanging over her head. Born of two different worlds Nepenthe can choose to either succeed her father as the ruler of her kingdom on land or live in the water and succeed her mother as The River Witch. Nepenthe lived on the line between land and river, but after tragedy strikes her choice seems to be made for her. That is until years later she meets Prince Lazar and develops feeling for him, feelings that her best friend Ora seems to share. Now her choices are confused and she's not sure where she'll belong. I really liked Nepenthe, she's not a character who has everything worked out, and she feels such strong pulls toward land and water, and yet doesn't know quite what to do. Even though her life spirals into a bit of a mess, she's still a strong character who won't compromise her morals to get what she wants.

Romance: To say this romance is complicated is a bit of an understatement. Since this is such a short story, at least compared to most novels, there isn't all that much time to properly develop a one on one romance, let alone a love triangle, but I have to say that Paige does a pretty good job. This is mostly due to the fact that Paige doesn't pretend that any of these feelings are pure, there's always something underneath that almost corrupts these romances, something that either one or the other values above the love they claim to have. It's really interesting to read it because even though things are going fast, it still, in some small way, makes sense.

World Building: This story takes place before the official first installment in this series. In it, we're introduced to a few really interesting plot points. First is a prophecy that I'm sure we'll see a lot more of in the main series, but it does give a taste of what's to come. Also, we're introduced to a character who will, supposedly, have a role to play in the main series and will come into contact and (maybe) give some guidance to our main heroine. I have to say it was interesting getting to know this world. I was pleased to see that The Snow Queen isn't the only fairy tale that exists and is referenced in this world. Nepenthe's mother is none other than "The Little Mermaid" who apparently got a much happier ending than the one in the original Hans Christian Anderson version. I loved the magic system and the role that magic plays, not only in this story but in this fantasy world at large.

Predictability: I have to say that this story isn't really predictable. I was expecting something that fit in much more with the fairy tale retellings and other YA stories that are out there today, and while I'm sure there are quite a few that would have similar parallels to this story, it's not something that's the norm. Since I didn't quite know where the story was going, there were a variety of different twists ranging from the surprising to the utterly shocking. I'm trying to figure out if there was anything that I was correctly able to guess ahead of time, but in all honesty there probably wasn't.

Ending: I love how self-aware this story is. The author writes it in such a way that it's no secret that this isn't your classic fairy tale and the ending shows that as well. There are steep prices these characters have to pay for the choices they make as this story comes to a close and sets in motion an ancient prophecy. The final climax of this story isn't so much an epic battle as it is something where we get answers to some burning questions. Then the story flows into an ending. there isn't really a cliffhanger and yet things aren't really tied up since this story is just a precursor to the main series.

Rating:

If you've been reading my reviews for a while now and couldn't tell, I'm a huge fan of fairy tale retellings and if the main novel is half as good as this novella seems to indicate it is I'm sure I'll love this fresh take on The Snow Queen.

Book Review: Stealing Snow (Stealing Snow #1)

Release Date: September 20, 2016
Author: Danielle Paige
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children's
Length: 384 pages
Source: eGalley from NetGalley

Seventeen-year-old Snow has spent the majority of her life within the walls of the Whittaker Institute, a high security mental hospital in upstate New York. Deep down, she knows she's not crazy and doesn't belong there. When she meets a mysterious, handsome new orderly and dreams about a strange twisted tree she realizes she must escape and figure out who she really is.

Using her trusting friend Bale as a distraction, Snow breaks free and races into the nearby woods. Suddenly, everything isn't what it seems, the line between reality and fantasy begins to blur, and she finds herself in icy Algid--her true home--with witches, thieves, and a strangely alluring boy named Kai, none of whom she's sure she can trust. As secret after secret is revealed, Snow discovers that she is on the run from a royal lineage she's destined to inherit, a father more powerful and ruthless than she could have imagined, and choices of the heart that could change the fate of everything...including Snow's return to the world she once knew.

This breathtaking first volume begins the story of how Snow becomes a villain, a queen, and ultimately a hero.

    

Review:

Protagonist: Snow has lived most of her life in a mental institution. She's not crazy, though, not really but day after day she tries to stay out of trouble and not let the other patients get a rise out of her. She had a friend, or maybe more, in a boy named Bale, but after their first kiss something happened and he went violent and they were separated. Then a strange new orderly appears in the middle of the night telling her that she needs to escape and find Algid, her true home, and so after Bale gets pulled through a mirror she sets off for Algid hoping that once she gets there she can find and rescue Bale, but once there she discovers that she's smack dab in the middle of all this world's problems. I really liked Snow, even though she has power over ice and snow, she has a fiery spirit and sardonic wit that bring a sense of excitement in me while reading from her perspective. Her reaction to all this fantasy stuff was very well done and I felt the author did a fantastic job at creating a very compelling and realistic character in our heroine caught between the light and the dark.

Romance: Argh! I wanted to be on board with the romance(s) in this book, I really did, and for a time I was but three love interests all introduced in the first installment is more than I can handle. At first, I was on board with a possible love triangle. There was Bale the childhood friend and eventual romantic interest for Snow. We don't see much of Bale, but the little we do see makes it obvious that he's a love interest to take seriously. Then we have Kai, who we meet shortly after Snow makes it to Algid. Kai and Snow have a combative relationship at first, undercut by romantic and sexual tension, and again I'm all on board for this possible love triangle. Then we have Jagger who we meet early on in the story but isn't revealed to be a romantic interest until much later. By the time Jagger is revealed to be a love interest I've hit my breaking point, and it doesn't help that he embodies a romantic trope I hate, the alluring boy who is so annoyingly cocky. Since I have a feeling I'm supposed to take all these love interests seriously I'm really annoyed, two at a time I can handle, but three love interests, who are really the only guys in this book around Snow's age that we see and all have feelings for her is very annoying.

World Building: The saving grace of this book, the thing that pushed me forward even when my head was about to explode with how aggravating the romance is, is the world building. As I'm sure a lot of you have picked up on by now, I love fairy tales and fairy tale retellings. Especially when they are of lesser known fairy tales such as The Snow Queen, like this one is. What I found so interesting about this story is that while it seems to promise a prequel to The Snow Queen and her rise to power, it also serves as a retelling of the classic tale as well. Not only that but there are elements of many fairy tales spread throughout this story and this land. My one annoyance though comes from the fact that there are inconsistencies between the eARC that I read and the synopsis, inconsistencies so large that I'm wondering if it was shoddy synopsis work or if the finished copy has larger changes than there usually are between ARCs and finished copies. That wondering is really annoying because if there really are changes they could be very large and change my entire feeling of this story.

Predictability: Looking back on this story it was very hard to pinpoint where things were going to go. There were no easy paths that made sense and things shifted so smoothly from time to time that it was never easy to see what was coming next. That made for a very unpredictable story. I want to say that there were things I easily picked up on, things that the author wanted to leave a mystery but I can't. I have theories on certain things sure, but nothing that was revealed in this story was something I easily caught onto.

Ending: My God this ending was insane. I tried to find a better adjective for it, but I still haven't fully processed it yet. So going into the final climax there was a lot of book still left to cover, more than usual at least, and I was extremely pleased with this drawn out, beautifully and terrifyingly described final climax. What I didn't expect however was the twist, the giant twist that I did not see coming that lead to a huge snowball effect that either made this book all the more awesome or completely ruined everything. Again, I'm still processing this ending and since I don't think it'll be fully processed for a while, for the first time I'm actually happy for the wait between books and I'm glad I have some time before the next installment to fully process everything.

Rating:

For once I'm truly at a loss for what to rate this book, and so while it does say four stars up there that may just as easily change once I've fully processed this book. There's a lot to love about this story but even after I've fully processed it I don't see this book getting five stars, mainly because of the clusterf*** of a romance.