Camille Longley

Literary Merit: Okay
Characterization: Okay
Recommended: No
Level: High School

This book.... was a LOT. While I won't lie to you and say that I hated it, I certainly didn't love it either. The writing was bland and repetitive, the characters were frustrating, and the plot was almost nonexistent. And yet, somehow, I couldn't stop reading this book to save my life. It was akin to passing a fatal car crash or a train wreck, where I wanted desperately to look away but just couldn't. I also kind of imagine that this is what it feels like to enjoy soap operas, as it felt very much like a guilty pleasure. Like fast food, I knew it was bad for me, and yet I couldn't help but consume it anyways, down to the last drop.

Though Firefrost is part of a series, it doesn't appear to follow any of the characters from the other books in the series. The story is told from the perspectives of two characters named Sol and Kelan. Sol has been trained her entire life as a huntress, and has just taken a job escorting a princess named Lady Isabelle to a neighboring kingdom for an arranged marriage. Kelan, a Flameskin, has dangerous powers that will one day consume him, and is trying to stop the marriage alliance that will wipe out his people for good. When a sudden avalanche wipes out everyone but Sol and Kelan, the two must learn to work together to survive... and soon realize that they have much more in common than they previously thought.

Because I absolutely loathe giving criticism to someone else's art, I will start with what I liked. This story had a really intriguing and promising premise, and I really liked the idea behind this world. In this universe, Flameskins like Kelan are hunted and killed simply for existing, even as innocent children. Some of the surviving adults have banded together to form their own army to combat the tyrannical government trying to kill them off.

This universe also features mages (who can control fire without losing themselves to it) and dryads, giving it a lot of versatility and opportunity to create interesting stories. I also really liked the idea of a "pyra," or demon, slowly taking someone over as they use their powers, thus making them a legitimate danger to society. This series is filled with a whole slew of morally ambiguous questions about who is right and who is wrong, and I think there's a lot of creativity in the world building.

That being said, the story chooses not to focus on any of this world building. Instead, it follows Sol and Kelan, two mildly interesting characters who meet by chance and fall in love incredibly quickly for being on opposite sides of a vicious war. I will be the first to admit that I am a huge sucker for romance, and can get behind almost any canon romance that is shoved at me in YA. I realized upon reading this book, however, that I do have limits, and there has to be a little bit of substance for me to really get invested.

I'll be frank; the romance in this book felt rushed, juvenile, and insincere. The characters go from hating each other to loving each other almost instantly, and spend the rest of the book waffling back and forth on their feelings and fighting. It felt a lot like the romance in The Notebook, a love story I find nearly intolerable. I'm all for the "enemies to lovers" trope when it is done well, but there was just no reason in my mind for these characters to ever fall in love, especially when they're consistently nasty to one another throughout. While I'm used to romance happening quickly in YA, this was a fairly large book that had the time to really explore these characters and their feelings, and yet the author chose instead to have them fight pointlessly, and threw conflict at them every other chapter to make things more interesting.

In my opinion, if your book is centered around a romance, it should be interesting enough to stand on its own without pointless conflict. To compare the romance in this book to a similar "enemies to lovers" romance, I'll use A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas. ACOMAF, as it's often abbreviated, features two characters who begin as enemies and slowly learn how to trust one another. It's an effective slow burn romance that establishes the characters as allies, then friends, and finally lovers, and it takes MONTHS in the story for this to develop. The romance feels incredibly organic, and the characters have to learn and grow before they become a good fit for one another. This book, on the other hand, relies solely on gimmick. The characters fight, fall in love, fight some more, and the rest of the book is the author throwing conflict at them to keep things interesting.

While I'll admit that I was drawn to some of the drama of this book, there wasn't enough substance behind the characters for me to stay invested all the way to the end. At first, I was hooked on the drama and wondering what was going to happen next, but by the end I was glancing at the bottom of my screen to see how much I had left to read. One particular scene in which there is good tension that immediately fades is when Sol is compelled to marry the prince in Lady Isabelle's place. During her procession to the prince's estate, Kelan and the other Flameskins see her, and Kelan believes he has been betrayed.

Upon meeting the prince, Sol realizes he's gross and creepy and longs for Kelan once again. This scene was setting up some great tension between the two characters, but it is immediately resolved a few pages later when Kelan and the Flameskins "kidnap" her. This is a rinse and repeat plot device, where conflict arises and is almost immediately resolved. Because of this, it feels as if the narrative is simply meandering, with no real purpose or destination. The story doesn't ever feel coherent, and it never really gives you time to get attached to any of the characters outside of Sol and Kelan (who are themselves not very compelling). Overall, the romance feels rushed and insincere, and even though I found myself drawn into what was happening for a few chapters, everything is resolved too quickly for the tension to stick.

I really hate having to give this book a negative review, as I was hopeful at the beginning that it would be an interesting new fantasy series. The bones of a great story were there, but the author spent too much time focusing on the romance, which wasn't written well enough to carry the story. I would've much preferred for the story to focus on the Flameskin rebellion, especially considering the fact that the Tokken people were committing literal genocide on anyone with Flameskin abilities. Focusing on the plight of Flameskins as framed by Sol, someone who grew up hating and fearing them, would've been a lot better than the pointless conflict Longley kept introducing in order to spice up the forbidden romance aspect. In addition, the plot is confused and meandering, and it seems as though Longley isn't quite sure where she wants to take it. It was a good start, but wasn't executed well enough to grab and keep my interest in the end.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend this to fans of romance OR fantasy, as the fantasy takes a backseat and the romance (as mentioned before) just isn't strong enough to carry the story. While I do think Longley has the skills to improve and create a better story in the future, this one just wasn't compelling enough to stick with me. Because there is so much YA fantasy and romance out there, you are almost guaranteed to find another series that does everything this book tried to do successfully, making this one (regrettably) yet another forgettable attempt to write the next big YA fantasy romance.… (more)