Alicia Rades

What did you like most about Fire in Frost?
I found this a great story building on friendship trust and helping those friends and others in a time of great need. Learning to believe in oneself and finding the strength within yourself to trust in yourself and your friends.

What does Kim Reiko bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
Kim Reiko did a great job in bringing Crystal to life and I found her tone and nuances for the other characters belieable and show more enjoyable. Kim was able to give a real 'young' tone to the YA characters and a more 'mature' tone for the adults. I think if I'd only read the book I would have used the same tone, within my head, for each of the characters.

Any additional comments?
I loved how this book embaced friendships, belief in oneself and belief in your friends. It was a constant story, no action, but definite had the odd suspenceful moment where you hoped that everything would turn out for the best. I also found that as the story progressed, the main character really developed, especially as her psychic abilities grew. Even though this is a YA book, I think adults that like paranormal psychic type stories would also get enjoyment from this book. show less

I loved this series. It is great seeing Crystal grow up through these stories. The storyline itself is awesome. This book is not a standalone. You have to read the previous two. This story has some twists and turns, so it isn’t like all the books with a psychic character you have read before. That aspect is refreshing.

DNF ~ 20%

This was a free audiobook on Apple Books, and I saw the Indigenous and disability representation and figured why not. I went in with low expectations, but I still find myself unsurprisingly disappointed. Because I don’t feel like writing out an essay today, I’m just going to bullet-point through the things I liked, didn’t like, and what was in between…

The Negatives
- Sophia was a very average immature teenage girl Mary Sue Chosen One main character. She had almost no show more personality and I found myself wanting to skip to Liam’s point-of-view chapters at times just to not have to hear about her inner monologue.
- Liam was a very typical angsty boy love interest, but given his situation I found it a little bit excusable. He was the more enjoyable of the two main characters.
- The magic system was unoriginal. Earth, air, water, and fire is a story I’ve read too many times before.
- The writing was very immature for a book aimed at new adults, I feel like this could’ve worked better as a young adult novel.

The In-Between
- This was one of those books where you can tell the writers are 100% millennials. Take that as you will.
- While the side characters weren’t the most fleshed out, they weren’t completely forgettable either.

The Positives
- Both of the audiobook narrators did a great job. In all honesty, their reading was the only truly enjoyable thing about this.
- The Indigenous and disability representation, which had been my main reason for reading this book, was actually very heavily present in this as far as I read in the story. Almost all of the characters are Indigenous and the love interest has a chronic disability that is present and spoken about within his point-of-view chapters.

TL;DR: Not completely awful but I didn’t find any worth in continuing on with this. show less

This is the beginning of a YA series about psychics, friends, families, and responsibility. Though written with a youthful tone the story and plot pulled me in and held me there. I would like to read more in this series.