A review by katiehicks
Freeze Tag by Caroline B. Cooney

3.0

3.5 stars

This book was suitably haunting and creepy and I think what I liked most about it was how the writing felt like a dark fairy tale. I wish this theme had been a bit more fleshed out, there were times when the book strayed into thriller territory, but the former defiantly worked better and made the story more interesting and different.

I read this book when I was younger, and I remember it being one of the first fairy-tale-esque books I read where the characters reversed at the end- the "prince" becomes the villain, the "evil queen" becomes the cursed princess, and the "princess" becomes the hero. It was really cool to see as a kid, and it stuck with me as an interesting narrative structure to look out for.

That being said, I definitely related more to and understood better the Trevor kids' decision in the end. I remember thinking before that Lannie had turned them dark and evil, but as an adult I find myself thinking that they may have been justified.

But then again, this over-simplified view of "good" and"evil" is another indicator that this story structure is based off fairy tales, which often had overly simplified plots and characters without nuance. I find that the best fairy tale retellings take theses themes and subvert them, and i'm not sure this book really did that, though it cleanly attempted to at the end, but by then it seemed sort of rushed and forced.