Frostbite by Richelle Mead | Book Review

“You can’t force love, I realized. It’s there or it isn’t. If it’s not there, you’ve got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”  

Blurb (Goodreads)- It’s winter break at St. Vladimir’s, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy’s crawling with Guardians–including Rose’s hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to- hand combat with her mom wasn’t bad enough, Rose’s tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason’s got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa’s head while she’s making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy’s not taking any risks…. This year, St. Vlad’s annual holiday ski trip is mandatory.

But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them. But heroism rarely comes without a price…

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Thoughts- Frostbite picks up right after the events of Vampire Academy and Richelle Mead delivers another quick paced, witty book. As an individual book, I liked this well enough, it wasn’t my favorite of all time, but I did enjoy reading it. However, I don’t feel as if this fares up as a sequel very well.

The main issue I have with this book, which is unfortunately present throughout the majority of the novel, is there is so much telling. The first few pages and into the first few chapters basically sum up book 1 and re-explain the entire vampire system to us. While this is nice because the brand new terms and differing mythology from typical vampire books is confusing, I just wish it was explained in a not so info-dumping form. I also find it odd how this info-dumping is never done in a classroom setting, even though it’s an academy.

Mead has created such a unique system of vampires, one that I’ve never read anything like before, and I want to know so much more about the politics of it all. We know who the Royals are at this point but we don’t really know their importance. Mead does start to expand on this more in this installment, especially highlighting the Strigoi and their recent unusual behavior, but I simply want more world development.

Sadly, that development is overshadowed by the romance, yet again. A romance, which I (quite frankly) don’t care much about at all. I’m totally fine with Christian and Lissa, they seem like a true power couple and I think that will come into play later in the series. However, I still really dislike Rose and Dimitri, the main romance plot. At this point, it’s not just the age gap but rather Dimitri’s character feels so predictable and dull to me. Then there was the whole deal with Mason this book, which I don’t even really know why it was included because it felt a bit pointless to me.

However, through all of this the characters shine a lot in this book (except for Lissa who did nothing). Rose has started to grow into her character more, and I can not wait for her to stop saying she’s mature and act it! Mia and Christian both have some great development as well, and I never thought I would say this… but I think I like Mia. Rose’s mother, Janine, is introduced in this book and I want so much more of her character all the time. Her interactions with Rose are so achingly honest, which is a nice change from Rose’s typical attitude.

Overall, I definitely had a few issues with this book since it was a sequel and I was expecting better things. Yet, Mead created a compelling enough story line for me to continue with the series, and I’m quite excited to learn more about the history of Dhampirs, Moroi, and Strigoi.