Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch (2014)

In Meira’s world there are eight kingdoms: four dominated by the seasons and four dominated by the rhythms. Each have a piece of magic that’s supposed to be used for good. With Spring, a hungry power tyrant took advantage of their magic, overthrew the Winter kingdom, and put anybody that was left of Winter in work camps. Meira was one of the twenty five that escaped, keeping the fight for Winter to once again rule alive. After discovering a crucial piece to retaining their kingdom, Meira and her pack go to a rhythm kingdom for assistance. Of course, assistance comes with a price and Meira must decide if it’s worth the risk.

This summer, I got the rare chance to walk into a bookstore and pick out whatever I wanted. First I chose Passenger by Alexandra Braken but I had enough money to get one other book. When I saw Snow Like Ashes, instantly my eyes caught. The cover is beautiful to say the least and the description sounded like nothing I’ve ever read before. Even though the reviews for GoodReads are mixed, I decided to give it a chance. After reading it, I think I fall on the more negative side.

Within the first five pages I was confused with the story. With fantasy, there’s a very limited window available to properly explain the world since it’s something the reader’s never read before. I think Sara Raasch’s problem is that she was so excited to introduce the world she introduced the world in too little time with too much detail. Terms were being thrown around every other sentence of places I didn’t know and magic I wasn’t aware of. Later on, some things got explained but still not enough to actually get the world. I still don’t understand how the magic works in over 400 pages.

There’s a backseat romance in this book that’s small but still problematic enough that I want to mention it. Right away, it’s obvious that Meira likes Mather, who is her age and is supposed to be the king of Winter. However, it was portrayed as if she was in love with him but I didn’t feel like she didn’t have any more than a crush on him simply because he was the only boy around. Then, once she gets to the rhythm kingdom, she’s put in an arranged marriage with Theron. She spends about two seconds being mad about the marriage until she also falls madly in love with Theron. In the course of a week I think. I got that she cared about Mather’s well being but I didn’t get how attached she became to him in such a short time.

At the end of the book, there’s a big “shocker” that’s supposed to blow the mind of the reader. I will admit, I was pretty surprised and didn’t see it coming. Until I read another review of the book and it became obvious that if someone paid enough attention (which I wasn’t) the reader could’ve easily figure out what was going to happen.

Usually, with this many problems, this book would automatically get a 1 Star from me. Yet, there were parts of this book that I really enjoyed reading. There were times when I was glued to the book and the plot, even though so many things happened in the book that it really should’ve been split in two book. For that, I can’t help but higher the rating since I could see so many people enjoying Snow Like Ashes.

2 Stars