About the book. 

{ SUMMARY }

Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige is a story about Snow, a girl who has been locked in a mental asylum her entire life. However, when her true love gets kidnapped, she ends up venturing into a frozen world and finding out her entire life has been a lie – she is a princess and has magic and she must now stop her power-hungry father, the king and save her kingdom.

{ COVER }

Can we just have a moment to fangirl about the beauty of the cover? It’s so simple but beautiful. Also, the icicle in the middle that goes rainbow when reflected in the light is BEAUT! And the font and the snowflake and everything about it is just so pretty!

{ WRITING }

The writing of this was too simplistic and not detailed enough. I found when I was reading scenes in the book, there wouldn’t be enough description, especially when there was action occurring (which there is a lot of in this book) and it would be quite confusing because the scenes would jump from one to the other.

This would be very jarring as I’d have to then go back and read over the scene to try and make sense of what happened which I should NOT have to do as a reader.

The story did not at all have a good flow and there would be times where scenes would skip together and important events would happen in the duration of one or two pages and I’d be left completely confused.

I think this could have very easily been improved though by either having very little going on or writing more detail and therefore a bigger book. This book is quite short and it could easily have a 100 or so more pages with extra detail to make it more enjoyable to read!

{ IDEA }

The idea is my favourite part of the book! I love retellings because I love to see how the author put a spin on the original tale and while this isn’t a direct retelling of a fairy tale, it takes on the idea of a ‘snow queen’ and incorporates it into the book.

However, I found myself a little let down by the retelling because it wasn’t very creative or new. I haven’t yet read Paige’s other series, Dorothy Must Die but I know how different and creative it is compared to the original Wizard Of Oz stories so I had expected more than I got.

The story is quite run of the mill and cliché. A girl doesn’t know she’s a princess, ventures into a mysterious land, has magical powers stronger than anyone has ever seen before and meets her prince charming (or should I say ‘charmings’ – the love triangles are a whole other issue which I’ll get to after).

I didn’t feel very impressed nor was I engaged or enthralled.

{ PLOT }

The plot was another mish-mash of too many ideas and poor execution. I am very sorry to sound so harsh but as a reviewer, it is my job to be truthful and critical.

There was so much going on in the book ALL THE TIME and there was such little execution. A third of the book (roughly) is spent in the mental asylum and then the second third is spent with Kai and Gerde and the final half with the Robbers. While battling the King’s men, while learning how to use her powers and getting used to a new land. All in the duration of 372 pages…

See my point?

This brings up two more points: firstly, how on earth did Snow learn how to use her powers so quickly? In the book, at the beginning, she didn’t even know she was a Queen. And by less than half way through the book, she’s already ‘mastered’ her powers. What even???

The other point: where was the world building in this book? Where was the explanation and description and imagery to describe Algid, a ‘magical frozen world’. Personally, even after I finished the book, I couldn’t imagine Algid, I couldn’t see the people, the ‘culture’, the land, nothing.

{ CHARACTERS}

I found I couldn’t connect with the characters at all in the book. I didn’t feel anything for Snow, I didn’t feel anything for any of her love interests, I didn’t feel anything at all. It was as if my heart had been frozen. (Ha ha, ha ha, get it?)

But in all seriousness, I couldn’t relate to Snow, I couldn’t sympathize or even empathize with her and I couldn’t connect with her in the slightest. Her character building was non-existent. I couldn’t imagine her as a person and she wasn’t leaping off the pages for me. I didn’t feel like she was a real person.

Her love interests, Bale, Jagger and Kai were also very flat and boring and dull. The only person I felt a little something for was Jagger because he was funny (only mildly) but the others were just meh for me. Bale is barely even in the book, Kai was barely a love interest for more than two chapters and Jagger does a whole disappearing act and comes back later in the book by which I was already uninterested.

The love triangles in the book were very dull and unexciting. I am not a love triangle fan anyway and every time they’re in books, I end up cringing but for the first time, I didn’t cringe or cry because for the first time, I couldn’t care less who ended up with who.

{ FINALLY…}

I am sorry this has been such a negative review, especially if you were looking forward to reading this. I didn’t end up enjoying it because it was really dull and had many issues and didn’t engage me in the slightest. I don’t like giving books such low ratings and I’m sorry if this review got a little mean but once again, as I said above, I must be honest and truthful.

OVERALL RATING: