Review: First Frost

                                 
First Frost
by Liz DeJesus


Plot Summary:
Fairytales aren’t real…yeah…that’s exactly what Bianca thought. She was wrong.

For generations, the Frost family has run the Museum of Magical and Rare Artifacts, handing down guardianship from mother to daughter, always keeping their secrets to “family only.”

Gathered within museum’s walls is a collection dedicated to the Grimm fairy tales and to the rare items the family has acquired: Cinderella’s glass slipper, Snow White’s poisoned apple, the evil queen’s magic mirror, Sleeping Beauty’s enchanted spinning wheel…

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Frost wants none of it, dreaming instead of a career in art or photography or…well, anything except working in the family’s museum. She knows the items in the glass display cases are fakes because, of course, magic doesn’t really exist.

She’s about to find out how wrong she is.


Expectations: Such a fun and interesting premise!  Fairy tales as historical fact, and thereby needing to be categorized and recorded.  I wish I could visit a fairy tale museum that had "real" exhibits!  And with that, I was hoping the author would give some accounts of what happened to our favorite princesses after their "Happily Ever After."


Review:

Speaking of "Ever After", I loved the author's explanation of how that saying came about - it is really a typo. :)  The story goes very quickly, with an absorbing plot and easy, familiar character types that advance the story smoothly.  A dissatisfied teen who does not appreciate what she has and her own potential, a loving, imperfect mother, the staunch best friend who did make a decision I found surprising in the last half of the book, and of course the swoon-worthy, brooding romantic interest.  Since the story moves so swiftly into the main conflict, there is little time to elaborate and add to the fairy tale stories we all know, except for the history of Snow White.  There are possessions from certain characters in the fairy tales, like Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel that are imbued with a specific kind of magic and I thought that was a cool idea that added an extra layer of realism to the magic. The explanations on the nature and regulation of the magic in the world of this novel was a little light - so much so that the powers that Bianca realizes she can wield in the end seemed a little too convenient. 

The romance in this story is perfunctory and sweet, and the resolution wraps up most loose ends satisfactorily (although I was left wondering what had happened to Snow White that she ended up in the predicament she was in). It is a quick, entertaining read if you are not looking for an intricate modern-day fairy tale.


review copy kindly provided by the author in connection with Young Adult Novel Reader Book Tour



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About the author:

Liz DeJesus was born on the tiny island of Puerto Rico.  She is a novelist and a poet. She has been writing for as long as she was capable of holding a pen. She is the author of the novel Nina (Blu Phi'er Publishing, October 2007) and The Jackets (Arte Publico Press, March 31st 2011). Liz is currently working on a new novel.