Frostblood by Elly Blake

A Review by Bridgette Obonyo

Frost blood is a YA fantasy novel by Author Elly Blake. The story follows Ruby, a fireblood in a kingdom ruled by fireblood hating frostbloods. After the violent death of her mother at the hands of frostblood soldiers, and a lengthy imprisonment, Ruby is rescued by a frostblood rebel group to be used as a tool in their campaign against the frost king.

Writing

Point of view: first person

The writing was good, but not great.

It was very descriptive which I liked. I could see what was being described pretty well, but some of the descriptions were a little cheesy. There were certain phrases and words that sounded a bit like words that belong in this world, in this time and felt out of place in the story.

World building

The world was very well built. The environment and history were very well written, and the map in the beginning of the book certainly helped.

Very Tropy

The story is definitely a trope salad.  Fire vs ice is more than a little overdone. The love interests hate each other but then fall in love etc.  At least the tropes were well executed and given a (slightly) refreshing spin, so they were tolerable.

Also the fact that the fire bloods name is Ruby- really! Even clichés cringe at how cliché that is. This continues throughout the rest of the book. Most frostbloods have ice/ cold themed names.

Waste of space parts.

There are parts of the story that seemed to be there for two reasons- to fill up the book, and to dump information on the reader about the world. A bunch or random things happen in these parts of the story just to justify having them in the book, but they don’t serve the plot in anyway. These parts of the books are boring to read and are much longer than necessary for world building.

The romantic sub- plot

This romance is very predictable- as soon as the love interest was introduced into the story I knew exactly how the romance would unfold- in the overly used (even for a trope) fashion of hate turned to love.

Also, the romantic element of the story had too much importance, which makes sense when you consider that there were moments where not much else was happening. I get that this is YA, especially one with a female protagonist, but the story had so much more potential than what the romance did for it.

Characters.

Ruby

Ruby is a likable character. She is passionate, fallible, and her temper tantrums were always fun to read, especially as they are always followed by moments of calm maturity, in which she would apologise for her outbursts.

Her battle with her powers- her fear of them and the guilt she attaches to them- makes for a heart-breaking but also cathartic story arc.

Her fear of ice, in a land made of and ruled by ice, lends itself to her feelings of isolation and loneliness.

All in all she was a very well written character, and I wish there had been more focus on her character and her development.

Arcus

The parts of the story without Arcus were actually my favourite. Not because I didn’t like him, even though I didn’t love him, and not because I didn’t like his role in the story, because at times I did- but when Arcus was in the picture, there was always a greater focus on the romantic sub- plot, and as mentioned, that was far from my favourite element of the book.

When Arcus wasn’t in the picture, the story was focused more on the interesting and well developed character of Ruby, dealing with herself, her guilt, and her powers.

Arcus was cold and unemotional most of them time, and downright cruel too. Then he’d show sudden flashes of emotion and passion that quite frankly made him seem emotionally unstable or at the very least emotionally immature.

Merella

This character comes into the story near the end. She plays an important role, but because she comes in so late we don’t get to know her well. She feels more like a plot device. She’s portrayed as being intelligent and brave under a false mask of a loyal courtly lady, but her character feels unformed and flat. She should’ve been introduced, or at least mentioned much sooner in the story.  It may have been better to leave this character out of the story all together.

Themes

Fire Vs ice

While as cliché as it can get, the dichotomy of fire and ice was actually very well demonstrated in this story, and enjoyable to read. The different sides to fire and ice were also beautifully illustrated- fire can both destroy and heal, ice can be cold but also beautiful.

All in all, I did enjoy parts of the books, especially Ruby's story, But by the last few pages of the book, I was eager for it to end- the tropes were beginning to be more than I could bare.
Oddly enough, I would definitely like to read the sequel, hoping the focus will be more on Ruby's character development. 

 Rating:         3 stars.