Frozen by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston
Published September 17th 2013
“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 starts of with a really confusing prologue. Prologues are normally fairly confusing but this one extra confusing. I ended up skipped half of it because it seemed really irrelevant at this point in the story.
This book is very fast paced and as someone who lives for fact paced fantasy, this was my favorite thing about Frozen. And I loved how the entire book was fast paced. It never slowed down. It was surprisingly consistent though out the entire book.
I haven’t read any other books by Michael Johnston but I have read several of Melissa de la Cruz’s other books. And Frozen definitely had Melissa’s mark stamped all over it. I find that all her books (that I’ve read) have a certain vibe and/or writing style about them that basically scream “Melissa de la Cruz wrote this!”. That’s not a bad thing by all means but in this case, Frozen being co-written, I was a little disappointed. I couldn’t see anything that really stood out as Michael Johnston’s style. Something that said he co-wrote this book.
The characters were all nice. There wasn’t anything that really annoyed me about them but I also couldn’t find anything that made me love them either. They were just…nice.
The world building was extremely poor. Nothing was really explained, there was no back story, or anything that told the reader how the world got to this point. And as a dystopia novel, this is really bad. I was extremely frustrated at times because all I wanted was some back story.
Overall, this is a pretty good book. It’s not really great but I didn’t find it to be horrible either. I loved how fasted paced it was but I really wish there was better world building. If you’re looking for a quick fantasy read, I would recommend this book out. Maybe borrow it from a friend or local library.
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