Seasonal Chaos in Snow Like Ashes | Book Reviews

【 SNOW LIKE ASHES 】

Adventurous and unexpectedly twisty.

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Author: Sara Raasch
Published: October 2014
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 422 (hardback)

I’ll start by saying I really didn’t love the audiobook performance of this book, but that I loved the world and the magic system – so I will definitely be continuing the series (just in physical format). I’ll also say that I did not the twist coming (and I liked it!)

For me, the audiobook performance was very flat and I couldn’t connect with the characters with the way they were portrayed. It’s also a relatively complicated world to understand and I think reading, rather than listening, would lend itself better to getting all the facts straight.

It took me the whole book to actually piece together what was going on, but I enjoyed the challenges set before the main character and the curious love triangles being set up. Though I have to say I wasn’t particularly fond of either choice, they were very two dimensional and uninspiring (but again, that could be the way the audiobook portrayed them).

I thought the concept of the world split into seasons and rhythms as kingdoms and territories was really, really cool. I actually want to reread book one to capture more of the nuances (that I hope are there) to see if there are a few more distinct traits (abilities?) of the people from different realms, other than just how they look.

All in all, worth the read and super satisfying to have now read because I’ve had my eye on this since it came out. I’m so curious to see where things go in book two because I’m sure we are in for a whole heck more chaos and adventure.

Grab a copy!