A review by jenagregoire
Frostbite by Richelle Mead

4.0

What an emotional hot mess we have here! Frostbite, the 2nd installment in theVampireAcademyseries, is an emotional roller coaster. One minute we’re up, then we’re done, then we’re sideways, then we cant tell which direction we are facing. Rose has some serious Mommy issues and in Frostbite, they shine through brighter than any star in the sky. It effects her relationships with men. It effects her decision making. It effects her attitude. When her mom shows up at St. Vlad’s, she doesn’t exactly handle it like a mature girl. Which, at 17 years old, is what she should be by this time. Unfortunately, it takes a series of horrifying events to make her finally grow up.

Once again, I listened to the audiobook for this one. I thought that the narrator forVampireAcademy(book 1) was bad…..this chick makes that narrator look AMAZING. Just a forewarning in case you decide to do the audiobook instead of physically read. In the first book, I had an issue with the voice that the narrator used for Lissa but it wasn’t horrible because the book in from Rose’s point of view. This time, everyone’s voice is fine EXCEPT Rose. Ohmahgoodness! Aweful. And Dimitri’s cool Russian accent is gone. lol If you can get by the god aweful narrator, Frostbite is a pretty good YA novel.

We spent book 1 getting to know the characters. This time around, the characters are already established so we have some much better storyline. If you’re into paranormal romance, this book just might be mushy-gushy and tortured enough for you. We have a forbidden love, and unwanted love and exposure to some lovin’ that Rose just didn’t want to see! For me, I love the forbidden love storyline. Dimitri and Rose are two peas in a perverbial pod. Fighting lessons are like some spark ridden dance. “And the sexual tension! With a knife, you could cut it!” (who got that reference?!?!?!)

There are a handful of characters in this series that you just cant put your thumb on until the very end. I love that about this book. Richelle Mead does a really good job at keeping new characters shrouded in just enough mystery that they remain intriguing through the whole story. Christian Ozera and Adrian Ivashkov are fantastic examples of this. I thought sure I had them both pinned about half way through the book and I was WAY wrong.

We also get introduced to some hard-hitters in this series. Tasha Ozera and Janine Hathaway are among them. They are strong female characters who have some serious presence. Two characters that are wicked bad asses (……assi…..whatever, you know what I mean!) and approach problems with MUCH different ways of thinking. Neither bad. Just different.

And ladies….and maybe some gentleman out there…..get those tissue boxes ready. That’s all I will say on that subject. *wink wink*

Overall, I liked this book a lot more than the first. As long as it is approached as being a Young Adult novel, it is good for what it is. However, looking at it as a young adult novel, there are some themes and scenes in this book that are a little more heavy than book 1 and I dont think I would say they they are appropriate for the YA crowd. I guess it would depend on maturity level and such. For example, my 11 year old daughter will NOT be reading this book for at least 5 years… With that being said, it’s a good book for adults that have a YA Novel guilty pleasure (such as myself).

I give Frostbite 4 stars!