Shadow Frost (Shadow Frost Trilogy)

Shadow Frost has a lot of the things that I should like in stories. A pretty cover (which drew me into it in the first place). Lots of wit, snark and an ensemble that seems to be bonding together. An interesting world with magic. But this book proved that you need a lot more than than to make a great read. In fact, despite having little expectations coming in, I was disappointed by the time I finished up due to everything else being underwhelming and in some cases, a total mess.First off, the magic and world building, while not unique, is intriguing with the idea of magical stones to use power and some of the things that surround this idea. But I wish it was expanded and clarified some more as the story continued, as I felt a bit lost on some aspects and it felt like things contradicted themselves at points. And while the world was descriptive, and the map was really well done by Coco Ma’s father, I didn’t feel like I was part of the world, but just reading a book about it. And there was not a sense of place in many chapters. For instance, I honestly thought we were in town in some of the early chapters when we were still in the palace.Which brings me to the prose and pacing. Starting from the prologue, which was intriguing, with the somewhat choppy and not smooth prose, I figured it might be a problem all the way through, but I’ll enjoy it despite it. The prose only got worse as the story went on with purple prose in the wrong spots and sparse information elsewhere. Much of the info dumping was dry and not interesting. I got lost and confused quite a bit of the time, I had no idea what was going on. The plot twists are so monotonous as well; it feels like it’s the same thing repeated several times over, and others were underwhelming. And apparently, this is loosely based on Snow White? I couldn’t tell until after I was finished. The pacing was all over the place, I was waiting for something to happen for like the first 20% of the book before the plot started, and even then, I had no clue what the story was actually about. Hunting? Something else? There was also a problem with the flashbacks, they didn’t flow well within the story, and took up entire chapters and broke the pacing entirely. The story overall wasn’t that great, it felt like much of the story was told to us and felt like a random events plot at spots, and that’s not even considering that I almost raged quit during the climax (at 92%) because of a choice one of the characters makes which baffled me based on what happened throughout the story. At that point, I skimmed through the end to see what happened since I was so close to finishing, and the climax was way too long and I couldn’t visualize it at all.There are a lot of characters in this book, and outside of Asterin and her main group, it’s hard to keep track of who’s who. Asterin and Luna have interesting character arcs and development, but I feel its way underdeveloped and a lot of things sorta come from nowhere, and it’s like Asterin becomes less important in the second half of the book as Luna enters center stage. Orion, Asterin’s best friend from childhood, Quinalin, the new guy, Rose, the new girl, and Harry were the only ones I can recall by name and all of them felt flat and super underdeveloped, which is a shame, as most of them could have had something going. The rest I can’t really remember, and honestly, the cast could have been cut down a bit. I did like some of the wit and banter between the characters, but there wasn’t too much else besides something at the end between two of them. And while I like witty characters and banter, it’s not a replacement for character development.There are seven PoVs in this book (some can argue too many), and while I don’t mind having over a half dozen PoVs in a book in third person, there’s a right way to do it so it flows seamlessly and you know who’s head you’re in, and there’s the wrong way to do it, where it feels like you’re lost and have no clue who you’re following. This book belongs in the latter; the PoV shifts feel arbitrary a lot of the time and don’t give me as much insight into characters as I wish. It doesn’t feel like they have their own separate voice. I don’t have a problem with switching in the middle of the chapter, but again, it’s done poorly.The romance is absolutely forced; the main cast are paired up early on and at times, feels intrusive to the story with over the top dramatics being obsessed about looks and kissing. In terms of love triangles, it’s messy, but the way it was presented rubbed me the wrong way. I wondered why they weren’t just a band of friends like you see in a lot of older YA books, with maybe one romance between them that starts developing, since there’s going to be two more books.This could have been an amazing read and an interesting story, but too many missteps made this one an early contender for biggest disappointment of 2020. Despite the sequel hooks at the end, I’m not really interested in reading more of their adventures and would read books that have better execution than this one.

The story was excellent, the book is truly the best. Can we please appreciate the simple and yet beautiful cover, after finishing the book, I understood the meaning of the cover and what connection it has with the storyline. You’ll be surprise when you find out! Even I was like “Ooh…so that’s what the cover means.” It’s a perfect book, not too long and not too short either. I highly recommend this book if you love so many great, strong and equal characters, high quality and original story with big plot twists. It was an incredible story, what a joy and amazing experience it is for me to read this book and follow the epic journey of the characters in it.

Coco Ma's work demonstrates her creativity and success as a writer to present imaginative, compelling, and enjoyable work. Glad to know that there will be more ahead in this series.

A

Decent story but it’s predictable and there are parts that get confusing and you can tell the author is a bit inexperienced

SHADOW FROST has a really exciting premise, but for me, fell a little short. I was expecting a darker YA fantasy and this felt more like a middle grade fantasy. The beginning is really exciting with a new beast/monster being risen and controlled. Asterin is the princess of Axaria, and she has been training in combat against her mother (the queen)'s wishes. She is also developing her magic powers, a little at a time.That is, until a neighboring kingdom sends two guards for the princess who give her a stone, which explodes her magical abilities. Then, Asterin decides to go after this beast/monster that is killing so many soldiers, accompanied by her friends.The dialogue was a little too descriptive (characters saying what they would do and then the text describing it further), and there is a lot of sparring and such that delays other parts of the plot. On top of that, there was a lot that did not make sense to me, such as why the queen was so disapproving of her daughter and why she cared so very little for her welfare (e.g. assigning two guards from a mysterious other kingdom to her service). It was unclear if this was the way things had always been or why or what Asterin thought about it. The text felt really disjointed to me, and it was a bit flat.To be fair, things do pick up later. If I had thought this was middle grade vs YA, I think I could have gotten into it more, but it was a little too simplistic and understated for a YA fantasy, in my opinion. For instance, the new guards give her a stone which makes her pass out- without consequences and no one is terribly concerned. There are also a lot of characters at first whose perspectives we get and this also makes the story seem spread a little thin.Overall, I really hard time getting into this one, but the premise is fascinating. I think I would have liked it shortened and made into a middle grade more. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed to read this book , the story is excellent , the main caractère is so cool . The Fantasy with infinity stones is really good so yeah it's a good book