Review: Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige

Stealing Snow

Author: Danielle Paige

Release Date: September 20, 2016

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens

Stealing Snow Book #1

ISBN:   1681190761

ISBN13: 9781681190761

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Review Copy Source: NetGalley

Seventeen-year-old Snow has spent the majority of her life within the walls of the Whittaker Institute, a high security mental hospital in upstate New York. Deep down, she knows she's not crazy and doesn't belong there. When she meets a mysterious, handsome new orderly and dreams about a strange twisted tree she realizes she must escape and figure out who she really is.

Using her trusting friend Bale as a distraction, Snow breaks free and races into the nearby woods. Suddenly, everything isn't what it seems, the line between reality and fantasy begins to blur, and she finds herself in icy Algid--her true home--with witches, thieves, and a strangely alluring boy named Kai, none of whom she's sure she can trust. As secret after secret is revealed, Snow discovers that she is on the run from a royal lineage she's destined to inherit, a father more powerful and ruthless than she could have imagined, and choices of the heart that could change the fate of everything...including Snow's return to the world she once knew.

This breathtaking first volume begins the story of how Snow becomes a villain, a queen, and ultimately a hero.

I was able to finish STEALING SNOW, but only because I skipped a lot of it by skimming paragraphs to get to the end.

I can't think of anything in STEALING SNOW that would make me recommend it to someone. I was so completely bored and for some reason, instead of putting it down and marking it DNF (did not finish) I forced myself to keep reading in hopes that it would get better. Unfortunately it never did.

Where was the world building? I was thrown into a world that I didn't know anything about and at the end, I still felt like I knew nothing. I had a hard time picturing where the characters were and when I could picture where they were I felt like something else was introduced before I could get comfortable in knowing the last place. There was a LOT of jumping around going on and I was always left feeling like things were unfinished. Snow jumps from group to group and never really finishes anything with any of them.

The love triangle—or should I say square? — was just another part of STEALING SNOW that I couldn't stand. Snow is in love with Bale, a fellow insane asylum patient, but then he's kidnapped and on her mission to find and save him there is Kai. But wait, it gets better! Here enters the thief. There is a lot of kissing other boys while her 'love' is sitting in a dungeon somewhere or maybe dead. I wasn't feeling any of her feelings at any time in STEALING SNOW. 

I am really surprised I didn't put STEALING SNOW down and was able to make it to the end. I absolutely hate that I was insanely bored with everything about it because I hate writing bad reviews. There was just way too much going on with zero development to fall back on in every part of this book.

I gave it 1/5 stars

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.