Reviews

Frozen Beauty by Lexa Hillyer

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laurenbookishtwins's review against another edition

4.0

Disclaimer: I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you kindly to HarperTeen for my review copy.

I absolutely adore books about sisters, including tragic ones. This one is definitely a tragic one. In Devil’s Lake, everyone knows the Malloy sisters: Kit, the studious one, who is perfect and good; Tessa, the one with a special connection to Kit; and Lilly, the baby of the family whose tired of living in the shadow of her sisters. When Kit is found in the woods, frozen to death, both sisters find that Kit had secrets that go deeper than any of them realised. When the boy next door, Boyd, is accused of the murder, Tessa knows deep down he’s innocent, and she sets out to prove it.

“Most fairy tales are told in threes. Three parts: beginning, middle, and end. Three suitors, three wishes, three nights. Three sisters.”

Frozen Beauty was an intense murder mystery that had you guessing until the very last page. It explores first loves, the complexities of growing up and growing apart, and lastly — the fears that women endure every day (trigger warnings: sexual assault, grooming).

At the heart of Frozen Beauty is sisterhood. The aspect that I really connected with, and adored, was the sibling dynamic. I have two sisters myself, one of whom is my identical twin sister. Their relationship was done fantastically – particularly the co-dependence Tessa feels, and the jealously Lilly feels. What follows after Kit’s death is indescribable grief, and difficulty coming to terms with the secrets they uncover.

A large focus of Frozen Beauty is also about growing up. Leaving behind the fallacies of childhood and coming to terms with the fact that there is no pattern we must follow. Fairy tales aren’t real, and adulthood is a dangerous place.

“Little Red Riding Hood ravaged by the wolf.”

If you’re a fan of murder mysteries, or books with a large focus on sisterhood, you’ll enjoy Frozen Beauty.

beccalesurf's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

womanon's review against another edition

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4.0

I really enjoyed this!

valeriabee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

The Malloy sisters: the perfect big sister Kit, tomboy in the middle Tessa, and baby Lilly. The three are as thick as thieves, and yet they all have their secrets. The secrets come to a head when Kit is found dead in the woods after a winter storm. No one knows what really happened, but Tessa makes it her mission to find out.

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I really wanted to like this book, but I found that I had to try too hard to enjoy what was going on. It didn't get particularly interesting until two-thirds of the way through, and that's when we start getting answers.

The first mistake is having too many voices. Within the first 100 pages, we already have 4 different points of view. The main ones being the surviving sisters. Lily's POV is set in the past, laying out the events of the fall and winter that led to Kit's death. Tessa's POV is set in the present, facing the aftermath of her sister's death and trying to unravel all the lies to make sense of what happened that night.

The book would have been a bit stronger if they had focused in on these two POVs and kept the interjections of Kit's poems. -- I liked that they include those poems, as it often feels like Kit isn't a real character since we only learn about her through her sisters and they have more interiority than she does. The author adds 4 other POVs (all male) and their only real function is to establish alibi's and perspectives that take away from the mystery. It started alright with Boyd's POV as it actually made me more suspicious of him. Once we got into Patrick's POV, it felt like the narrative was losing structure and falling apart. It all fell apart when we got Liam's POV for a singular chapter. Each POV serves a distinct purpose and I understand the author wanted to establish the reasoning for the answers, but it felt like it was doing too much.

The big reveal was anticlimactic. I kept asking myself: where was this in the text? When was this established? It felt like it all came together too quickly, we didn't get to spend enough time with the culprit. Too much time was spent on misdirection and deciphering various secrets and the secrets don't even come together until the events of that night are actually laid out. The discovery of the main culprit moves too quickly and is too easy. Tessa's narration says that it was all in front of her and she should've seen it (or rather all of the puzzle pieces are put together like they were always obvious). Honestly, while I was reading, I did not get the feeling of threat or discomfort that was trying to be portrayed. The suspicion felt random in the moment.

A lot of the problems with the book is in its narrative style and structure. Then, if you were to put together a murder board for Kit, the threads wouldn't really overlap or connect in any distinct way. You want the board to create a web of sorts, one that only needs a thread or two to bring it all together. Instead, the threads in this story kind of line up -- or lead to the center (Kit)-- and you need a lot of information before you can even make sense of it. That information doesn't come to us until the very end, at which point it feels rushed.

Perhaps I fail to fully understand the story. Maybe it's not supposed to be a murder mystery/thriller (even though it has a lot of those elements), maybe the focus is supposed to be primarily on the secrets people keep. It's definitely written that way. Even then, I think it could have been executed better. More urgency or desperation in the secrets, more hints as to what the secrets could be -- because for some people the secrets were so well kept I, again, was asking myself how that was established or alluded to in the previous text--, perhaps even less secrets to give space for the essential ones. Perhaps I need more time to deliberate, perhaps I'm being too harsh.

Content Warnings