Mad Max: Fury Road meets Frozen in this striking YA fantasy about a rig driver’s journey to save her friend Twice-orphaned Sylvi has chipped out a niche for herself on Layce, an island cursed by eternal winter. Alone in her truck, she takes comfort in two things: the solitude of the roads and the favor of Winter, an icy spirit who has protected her since she was a child. Sylvi likes … a child.
Sylvi likes the road, where no one asks who her parents were or what she thinks of the rebels in the north. But when her best friend, Lenore, runs off with the rebels, Sylvi must make a haul too late in the season for a smuggler she wouldn’t normally work with, the infamous Mars Dresden. Alongside his team–Hyla, a giant warrior woman and Kyn, a boy with skin like stone–Sylvi will do whatever it takes to save her friend.
But when the time comes, she’ll have to choose: safety, anonymity, and the favor of Winter–or the future of the island that she calls home.
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Filled with a great mix of fast-paced action and oh-so fascinating characters, this book is clever, subtle, gritty, and refreshingly out of the ordinary for YA fantasy.
What I Loved:
The World-Building… The Isle of Layce is incredibly unique and yet feels so real. I loved the rugged Ice Road Truckers vibe mixed with Winter’s harsh, stunning beauty.
Sylvi… Just like the story itself, this girl’s got guts! I loved her grit and capability.
Winter… The concept of Winter being an actual spirit is a fascinating dynamic. There’s so much mystery to her relationship with Sylvi, and I love how it unfolds along way.
Basically this book is easily one of my favourite reads of the past year. Highly recommended!
Winter, White, and Wicked is one of those novels you want to love because it has such an exciting premise. Labeled as a novel that is both parts Frozen and Mad Max: Fury Road, the reader, expects a high tension, action-packed, emotional ride of a story. Instead, it falls short in many ways.
Lackluster Storytelling
As a reader who was excited to get her hands on an early copy, this story was a letdown.
The opening shows Sylvi eagerly trying to escape into the snow to play with the snow and the spirit Winter. It paints a fairy tale about the Winter Spirit similar to the classic tale the Snow Queen. It is an excellent introduction to the story, giving the reader a good foundation and knowledge of the world and how different Sylvi is from Lenore.
However, after that, the story starts to lose itself. Sylvi embarks on a journey through the treacherous snow and winter, faced with physical and mystical dangers. However, the story takes so long to deliver the tension and the stakes.
The story is ultimately about exploring Sylvi’s roots and magic, and it does that, but it takes too long to do so. The story drags, going from one treacherous part of the journey to another. The pacing lacks losing the reader.
Winter, White, and Wicked is also repetitive. These characters go back and forth, having the same argument, saying the same things in different ways so much that it makes the story dull.
Poor Character Dynamics
Then there were the characters. Mars is incredibly unlikeable. He is a scheming, manipulative bastard. Yes, his motivations for a free country are great, but it is no excuse for how Mars treats and talks to Sylvi. He knows more than her, and instead of just telling her, he manipulates her. Again, it does make sense for the story, but as a reader, I just wanted Sylvi to throw him off her rig and abandon him to the cold.
The dynamics were just off overall. Sylvi is a good character, but I did not love her. There was just something about her personality, her unwillingness to listen, that rubbed me the wrong way. Her life has not always been an easy one, but she had Lenore, she had Winter, she had people who cared about her. However, she is as stubborn as they come, ultimately making her less charismatic than she would have been otherwise.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Winter, White, and Wicked was a bit of a letdown. It just dragged along like a rig on ice, slowly making its way to the end. Nevertheless, the ending was disappointing because it built up all the lies built up Sylvi’s life and then ends. Nothing happens other than her joining the rebellion, and that sucks. There should have been something more, some outburst between her and Winter, given the novel’s events, and yet, nothing happens. It felt as if the story was building to something, and then the author just decided not to see it through.