Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige
IN A FROZEN WORLD, A QUEEN WILL RISE
Summary
Sevente-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.
Book Details
Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige
Series: Stealing Snow #1
Sale Date: September 20, 2016
Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic
Ages 14 And Up
Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 384 pages
Source: Publisher
My Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
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Edgy and with twisted magic, STEALING SNOW is the first book in Danielle Paige's contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen" a book that has been on my TBR shelf for a while now. As a fan of fairy tales, I knew I wanted to read it as it is not often we see this Hans Christian Andersen's tale told in YA. The opening book immediately captured my attention but unfortunately dimmed as the story and characters progressed from Whittaker Hospital to the frozen Kingdom of Algid.
STEALING SNOW creatively incorporates many of the characters, magic, and objects from the original source. Readers can find the legend of the cursed and splintered mirror, and Kai, Gerda, and the River Witch’s characters, even the Little Robber Girl, the snow bees, and red shoes make an appearance, but it was surprisingly Whittaker Psychiatric Hospital that I found the most fascinating.
The story opens in an asylum filled with odd and vivid characters and writing that easily captured my attention. There's Wing who thinks she can fly, Pi the code breaker, Magpie the resident thief, and Bale the boy of fire who Snow gives her her heart to. Snow's interaction with each character and just the writing, in general, sucked me in.
“You are not crazy, Snow. You were just lied to. You are not evil. You have magic. It’s not a curse. It’s a gift. I may be a liar, but I know this much is true.”
Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige Kindle Edition
Somehow though, as the story progressed the characters and the world just didn't stand out nor resonate with me any longer. A handsome thief named Jagger, the River Witch Nepenthe, King Lazar, and Gerda and Kai, are all characters inhabiting the cursed Kingdom of Algid that Snow gets pulled into but they just didn't feel fleshed out. Yes, they each had fascinating roles and I liked the twists given to each but their relationship with Snow just felt rushed. Even the romance(s), usually my weak point, didn't capture my interest.
Stealing Snow felt like two separate books to me and it was the writing in the first half grabbed me whereas the second and later half did not. I was so excited to visit the snow land of the Snow Queen and meet its characters, maybe too much to my disappointment.
This is my first read with Danielle Page and I'm definitely curious enough to try her bestselling series, Dorothy Must Die, which so many readers rave about. I may at some point continue with the series as I would like to know what happens to Snow.
