September 30, 2013
Pearce draws from Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” in her fourth and final story set in the werewolf-beset contemporary America of her previous fairy-tale retellings. Seventeen-year-old Ginny is eager to start a new life in New York City with her longtime best friend and not-so-longtime boyfriend, Kai, until a mysterious woman named Mora appears during a deadly snowstorm and lures Kai away. Following a hunch that Mora is actually the Snow Queen that Kai’s grandmother warned them about, Ginny sets out to rescue Kai. The characters Ginny meets (among them a werewolf tracker, an Irish Traveller known as the Princess of Kentucky, and a former beauty queen) help anchor this story in the larger world of Pearce’s earlier books. While “ocean girls” and the yellow-eyed Fenris will be familiar to devotees of Sisters Red, Sweetly, and Fathomless, newcomers might have difficulty getting up to speed in this complex world. The struggle to repair fractured relationships is, once again, central to Pearce’s story, and she ends her series with as happy an ending as is perhaps possible in the dark, unforgiving America she’s created. Ages 15–up.
October 1, 2013
A very long reimagined contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen," rather plodding and point-for-point, but with some lovely language. There's a prologue (though not with a troll) of the memories of Kai's grandmother Dalia's past. In the present, the story is told by Ginny, who lives across from Kai and loves him. It is snowing, hard, in Atlanta in October. A cold, beautiful girl named Mora appears as Dalia dies and takes Kai away from his future as a violinist and from Ginny. She follows, driving from Atlanta to Nashville, in snow that is not natural but created by Mora, the Snow Queen. (Readers get far more of Mora's back story then they really need.) Guided by Grandma Dalia's book of recipes and spells, Ginny meets up with a savvy beauty queen and her werewolf-hunting husband in Tennessee and then with a group of Travellers in Kentucky. (The red shoes of the original tale, here a pair of high heels, connect the beauty queen and Flannery, the Travellers' Princess of Kentucky.) Pearce is at her best when she is describing Ginny psyching herself to do what must be done and recalling kisses. (She's very good with kissing.) Though it's lengthy, romance-loving readers familiar with the original will find much to enjoy here. (Urban fantasy. 12-18)
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December 1, 2013
Gr 9 Up-Kai and Ginny have been in love since they were children. They live in a shabby apartment building on the wrong side of Atlanta, and it has been them against the world, forever. As the end of high school approaches, strange events tear Kai from Ginny. A mysterious woman steals him away, but it is not simple infidelity at work. There is an entire supernatural world at play with our own, with werewolves that steal young girls and a Snow Queen who steals young men. Ginny fights to get Kai back, finding allies along the way. While individuals and scenery are described in vivid detail, the characterizations are weaker. Readers are told about, rather than shown, the teens' all-consuming love. Kai is described as an immensely talented violinist, while Ginny has no special qualities. In fact, a character describes her as not doing anything yet, so potentially she can do everything, which is a nice way to spin a bland, Mary Sue-type character. The pace is fast and the action is almost nonstop, helped along by a deus ex machina of a rich couple who have the talents and connections that Ginny needs, and who form an instant bond with her. If readers are willing to turn a blind eye to some of these issues, they can enjoy the action, the great descriptive language, and the swoony love story, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen."-Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT
Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 15, 2013
Grades 8-12 Pearce's fairy-tale retellings continue with this modern take on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, joining her previous updates to Andersen's tales, beginning with Sisters Red (2010). Ginny has been told to mind the beasts since she was young, but she never believed the warnings. Her best friend, Kai, has slowly but surely become her boyfriend, and the two have grand plans to leave behind their less-than-ideal families to run away together. However, Ginny's world (and her belief in her own sanity) is shaken when Kai is stolen by the Snow Queen, Mora, who rules over the beasts in hot pursuit of Ginny on her quest to rescue Kai. Pearce's lyrical prose evokes the sweetness of first love and weaves Ginny's tale into the other stories in the series. As Ginny hunts the Snow Queen, she meets a host of interesting characters and muses on who she can trust and the nature of her relationship with Kai, but underneath it all, she is determined to take the reins of her own life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2014
Pearce sets Andersen's "The Snow Queen" in her contemporary world of werewolves (Sisters Red; Sweetly; Fathomless). When Ginny's love Kai disappears with the mysterious Mora, Ginny chases after him, encountering a werewolf hunter, a beauty queen, gypsies, and more. The intricate plot can be hard to follow, and Ginny is a rather weak heroine. Still, devotees of Pearce's fairy-tale retellings will be satisfied.
(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)