Frozen, by Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston | Book Review #185

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“Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows.

At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she’s heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light.

But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all.”

Frozen is book 1 of 3 in the Heart of Dread series by Melissa de la Cruz, and Michael Johnston. I definitely think that Frozen would be a better read if you didn’t read the synopsis, so.. sorry for putting up there, ahaha.

I really liked the beginning, I thought it was cool. And then I found out the reason behind the beginning of the book, and realized that while I thought it was cool, the beginning of this story is actually so important and detrimental to this story.

There are two points of view; one from Nat, and the other from Wes.

I really liked Nat. I found that Nat was an incredibly interesting character.

While, Wes (who has a military background), I found myself not liking.

One thing that redeems Frozen (in my opinion), is that the story moves quickly. There’s no dilly-dallying over the small things. And with that said, I can honestly say that I read this in around 3 hours! I sat down, got comfy, and dove into this book.

There were quite a few books though, that in my opinion, I feel like the authors were fighting over what they wanted the characters to do: to be in a relationship, to not be in a relation ship; to… I want to say that the authors were having this power play. This was clearly shown to me when I read the book. They still managed the story to have a nice flow to it though.

But I feel like the book could’ve ended a little bit sooner. I had gotten to the part that I thought was the end of the book, and ended up being surprised that there was more to the story! With that said, I definitely would have like the last few chapters of Frozen to be the opener in the next book, Stolen.

Dragons!!!!! Which is totally awesome, becase dragons aren’t really a think in YA books? Either that, or they’re just being dragons as usual and are being super evasive.

I thought the romance was “eh” there wasn’t really anything to fawn over, you know? I didn’t find the romance to be swoon worthy.

I really love the fantasy aspect of the novel. To have all of these different species is great, and the dystopian touches are great! One thing that I found really interesting was the piles of trash that float around on the top of the ocean are called “trashbergs” much like you’d call the icebergs, “icebergs.”