Book Review: Frostbitten by Heather Beck

I received this book in exchange for an honest review through Lovers of Paranormal.

Frostbitten by Heather Beck is the story of a girl who moves to the middle of nowhere, shipped off by her mother.  Everything seems all perfect there with her grandparents, just as she remembers it.  But what things seem to be and what they are can be two different things altogether...

Let's start with the cover.

I know I nitpick covers.  I'm horrible about it but I really can't help it with this one.  I get that these are stock images that are merged together.  But please, put some effort into it.

The wolf is floating above the snow.  The hues and lighting are completely different for the two.  The model has direct light and the wolf is in some shadow on his right side.  Also...who wears a flowy sleeveless chiffon gown into the woods?  It doesn't make sense.

It's also a bit too on the nose.  The first half of the book is written to be really suspenseful but the flipping answer is right on the cover.  It's a cute idea for the cover but poorly executed, which was kind of a theme for the whole book.

Anastasia

I couldn't get into this character much at all.  This girl is so whiny.  She claims at the beginning of the book that she is a "good girl" and "shy" but quickly reveals that she has been drinking and partying with her boyfriend and that is why her mother is sick trying to help her.  Those two elements don't fit well together, at least for me.  She also claims that she loves books but when she moves to Cedar Falls, all of a sudden she is too cool for them.  For someone that is supposed to be kind or whatever, she is awfully stuck up.

I get that she feels abandoned but her relationships are not consistent throughout the book.  She isn't mature enough to have a good conversation with her grandmother until halfway through the book but she is mature enough to reach out and mend fences with her mother?  She has a bad relationship and immediately plunges into another one with a boy that she barely knows and her grandparents hate?  Anastasia never did much to build up her character or give me a reason to be empathetic with her.  She lets herself get bullied at school by mean little girls and gets sucked in far too easily into the drama.  I wanted her to be so much stronger than she was.

Frost

The misunderstood ostracized boy.  He is the most compelling character in the book.  The author gives him depth.  He has a reason to act the way that he does and he has real motivations that spur these actions.  Frost isn't worried about being popular or fitting in.  He knows who he is as a person and he is very secure in that.

However...he is a cliched character, through and through.  The cliches exist because they work in some situations.  Frost is handsome and strong and rugged and perfect except for his big secret that nobody else can know because the villagers will freak out.  Is anybody else seeing Edward or Jacob in this? (I intensely disliked Twilight because of these reasons too)

What's happening

Overall, I've heard this story before.  It felt like a knockoff of the Twilight series from the beginning.  Girl moves to a snowy town where something is being torn up in the woods.  She has nightmares.  She has overprotective family.  She is a weak heroine.  She hears howling at night and there is this gorgeous unapproachable boy that pays attention to her and only her.  She discovers his big bad secret, runs off with him to protect him and falls desperately in love with him very quickly.

This book could have been something so much better.  The author has a halfway decent idea, she just has to make it unique in some way.  There needed to be something more dangerous going on, instead of just hunters.  There needed to be more than just silly mean little girl drama and a family's disapproval.

So close...yet so far away.  If you want to read this plotline, read Twilight.  There is at least some slightly interesting tension there.

2.5/5 stars.  Promising idea, poorly executed.  Also, the name?  Frost...bitten...werewolf...ugh