Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige

Book birthday September 20, 2016

Summary from author’s website:

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SNOW ESCAPES A MENTAL INSTITUTION IN UPSTATE NEW YORK AND ENDS UP LOST IN ALGID, A WINTERLAND OF ICE. CONFRONTED WITH A PAST SHE NEVER KNEW SHE’D HAD, IN A STRANGE WORLD THAT MIRRORS HER DREAMS, SNOW MEETS THE RIVER WITCH WHO TELLS OF A PROPHECY: SNOW MUST SAVE THIS MYSTERIOUS FROZEN LAND FROM THE EVIL KING LAZAR AND CLAIM IT FOR HER OWN OR SHE WILL NEVER ESCAPE ALGID. AS PIECES OF HER LIFE AT THE ASYLUM AND THIS NEW PLACE START TO WEAVE TOGETHER IN DISTURBING WAYS, SNOW SEEKS SAFETY FROM KIND, HANDSOME YOUNG KAI. BUT WHO CAN SHE REALLY TRUST AND AT WHAT PRICE?

Confession:

For some reason I thought this was a retelling of Snow White when I first started reading it.  I think it was the broken mirror on the front cover of the book that threw me off.  Also, I requested the galley a few months ago from Netgalley, based solely on the fact that it was a book by Danielle Paige and so probably didn’t read the summary that closely. So I spent the first 100 pages a little confused, and wondering when the Snow White story was going to start.  Once I figured it out I was able to get into the story and characters.  This is more of a prequel to the Snow Queen story, explaining how the she became the way she is, although the other characters from Anderson’s original story are there.  Snow is an interesting character, having lived most of her life in a mental institute, where she was kept sedated most of the time, she is strange mixture of innocence and cunning.  In the institute she spent a lot of time watching a soap opera on TV which is what she bases her knowledge of how the world works.  Once she arrives in Algid, she flits from situation to situation like a bad dream.  This is a major flaw in this novel, I felt lost many times because Snow was in one situation on one page and then in a totally new place and with new characters on the next without a real explanation as to how she got there.  The flow of the story line was slightly off somehow.  I have this issue with the author’s other series, Dorothy Must Die, the plot just seems to jump around a lot.  Not enough to make it unenjoyable, but enough that you really have to pay attention to the story.  In the end, I still think this is a fine start to a new series.