Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch

Snow Like Ashes
Author: Sara Raasch
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: October 14, 2014
Goodreads ♥ Amazon

Review:
Snow Like Ashes was a hot mess. The synopsis promised a heartbroken girl, a fierce warrior, and a hero in the making. I read the entire book and didn’t read about any of these things. Instead what greeted me was an impulsive main character that was a sub-par fighter who might be able to win back a kingdom.

My first inkling that something was wrong in Snow Like Ashes was the world building. The quick run down is that there are eight kingdoms, four of them are the four seasons (winter, spring, summer, and autumn) and then there are four other kingdoms, the rhythms. My take away was that the rhythms are cool but not as cool as the seasons. The world building was all over the place and I never got a good sense of place. All of the scenes and character interactions felt free standing rather than having a good sense of place.

My second inkling that something was terribly wrong was Meira. The main character had a death wish. She was a poorly trained fighter who was constantly ignoring orders and putting herself, and those around her, in danger. I’m not a fan of fight sequences and there were a lot of them. In more than one of these fights Meira ended up passing out or being knocked out by her opponent. I’m not a trained fighter or anything but if I kept getting knocked out by my opponent I would eventually expect to be stabbed, or at the bare minimum I would probably start re-evaluating my career choices. But not Meira!

I think my last straw with Snow Like Ashes came when Meira who desperately wants to be taken seriously as a fighter suddenly has a love triangle form around her. A love-triangle which consisted of her, a king, and a prince! I’m not a fan of love triangles generally but I can put up with one. The problem with this triangle was that it had no love. I couldn’t get a sense of Meira’s feelings for either boy and thusly didn’t care about them.

Overall, Snow Like Ashes confused me. From the shoddy world building, to the loveless love triangle I was lost. I’ve looked around and a lot of other readers seemed to enjoy this story, which makes me wonder if I read the same book as everyone else. But hey, if you like high fantasy and fight sequences this might just be the book for you even if it wasn’t my thing.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch