Hearth and Pages: Frostblood by Elly Blake (Frostblood #1)

“Affairs between fire and frost rarely end well.”

First of all, I win a copy of this book from a giveaway that held by FairyLoot, so thank you so much! If you don’t know what FairyLoot is, it is one of the most awesome book box subscription for YA fantasy lovers and they delivered monthly and worldwide. You can check them out on their website here. Now let’s get to the book. Frostblood is a YA fantasy debut novel by Elly Blake. It is also the first book in the Frostblood saga. This book sets in Tempesia, a land governed by Frostblood, people who are gifted with the power of ice. They are ruled by a cruel Frost King who is determined to capture and kill every Fireblood, people who are gifted with the power of fire, their counterpart. Unfortunately for our main character, Ruby, she’s born with a gift of fire. One day the soldiers ransacked her village and then captured Ruby. She lost everything dear to her and she’s start losing hope as she is now imprisoned. But then come two Frostbloods, an old man named Brother Thistle and a mysterious hooded young man named Arcus who offer her a chance of freedom and revenge to the Frost King. Only, Ruby doesn’t know that her freedom and revenge will come with a price.

Honestly, I have a mixed feeling towards this book. The writings is good, the flow of the story is nice, and though the world building is pretty basic for YA high fantasy book, it works well. I also love how the magic works and the myth in this book.

That being said, I don’t think there’s something special in this book. It’s just so full of cliche and also full with typical YA tropes that bored the hell out of me. If I haven’t read many YA books, I will probably like it more. But unfortunately, I have spent the last three years reading quite a lot of YA books and when it comes to YA fantasy, dystopian and sci-fi, there are some tropes which just so repetitive and too similar with other already existing books and I’m starting to get sick of it.

The romance in this book is too rushed. I would be more happy if the main character and her love interest ended up as friend first by the end of this book. And maybe they developed their relationship more in the next installment. But well, we can’t always get what we want. Also there are some cringe-fest romance-related things going on on the second part of this book between the MC and the villain, and I just can’t. NOPE. I’m also struggling to connect with the characters. Some of them are interesting but I just can’t feel any connection to them on personal ground. The relationship between some characters also feel forced and weird.

The last thing that really bummed me is the plot is so predictable. When I reached 1/3 of the book I already predicted what would happened by the end of part one, what will be going on part two and how this book will ultimately end, and I was right. Everything that I predicted was right. And it sucks for me because while I love being right, I also love being surprised when I read a book. I love it when I can’t guess what’s coming, and this book is so predictable that when a new character showed up, I correctly guessed who they are and what are their real motives. I mean come on, some of my favorite YA series are also predictable but they always have something that still surprised me. I am so disappointed, nothing really thrilled me because I got all my predictions right, and that’s really boring.

In conclusion, if you’re not familiar with YA especially YA fantasy, you might really enjoy this book. But, if you have read quite a lot of YA books, you might want to skip this one. It’s a pretty good book, but it’s not something new or special. That being said, I am going to continue reading this series, though. Maybe not right away, and I will probably wait until all the books are out before I continue this series.