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A review by michellewords
Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Ugh, Briggs, what are you doing?
This series is very much a guilty pleasure for me. I don't feel like there's a lot of value in it and the books are very basic. I don't expect a lot from it, but I do expect to feel at least mildly entertained. Frost Burned did not come through for me.
The book starts out pretty solid. Adam and his entire pack is kidnapped by some anti-were/fae extremists. They want Adam to pull off a very big political move and they are so serious they kill a member of the pack. Mercy gets this message from Bran to ditch all phones and stay away from known locations. Pretty strong start right? I was here for it too. I was ready for some good political intrigue and some really compelling world development.
But Briggs pull the rug right out from under me. Adam makes short work of the extremists so *shrug* doesn't matter. But you know what really matters is vampire fight club. Some guy named Frost/gauntlet boy is out to destroy/take over Marsilia and her seethe. This plot comes in completely out of left field. No talk of vampires or anything until at least halfway through the book. It was such a jarring plot shift, I was sure I missed something. I felt so confused while I tried to think of where this plot was hinted at---but guess what? It's not. It's really not.
The book is a big mess. It feels like a short story duology forced into one book and it's not pretty.
Frost Burned also included some Adam POV chapters, which was exciting at first, until I realized that Briggs was not going to make these chapters anymore inciteful or valuable to the plot or characters--INCLUDING THE POV CHARACTER.
I put this book down for almost 2 whole weeks trying to figure out if it was worth it to finish it. If this was my last Mercy Thompson book. As a reader I feel so angry that I was tricked into reading about vampire fight club. I don't want vampire fight club, that's not what this book was when I started it or even in the middle of it.
Except I have heard the next book is really good, with Adam's ex-wife and such. Out of FOMO I did eventually give in to the audiobook. it was available at my local library and I only had like two hours left of listening.
I'd like to say the two hours were better than I expected, but they weren't, in fact I feel like it was a lot worse.
I want to say you should just skip this book altogether, but I'm not sure if any of these awful plot points will come up again, so maybe you have to. Or maybe just read a summary somewhere? Or put it on 4x speed in audiobook? I don't know. It's really not great. Why is Mercy shifting from quirky, fun tough guy to winy girlfriend? SIGH. Help. I'm picking up the next one, but it might take me six months to read it if it's anything like this one. And if it's bad, I'm done with Mercy. *RAGE ENDED*
This series is very much a guilty pleasure for me. I don't feel like there's a lot of value in it and the books are very basic. I don't expect a lot from it, but I do expect to feel at least mildly entertained. Frost Burned did not come through for me.
The book starts out pretty solid. Adam and his entire pack is kidnapped by some anti-were/fae extremists. They want Adam to pull off a very big political move and they are so serious they kill a member of the pack. Mercy gets this message from Bran to ditch all phones and stay away from known locations. Pretty strong start right? I was here for it too. I was ready for some good political intrigue and some really compelling world development.
But Briggs pull the rug right out from under me. Adam makes short work of the extremists so *shrug* doesn't matter. But you know what really matters is vampire fight club. Some guy named Frost/gauntlet boy is out to destroy/take over Marsilia and her seethe. This plot comes in completely out of left field. No talk of vampires or anything until at least halfway through the book. It was such a jarring plot shift, I was sure I missed something. I felt so confused while I tried to think of where this plot was hinted at---but guess what? It's not. It's really not.
The book is a big mess. It feels like a short story duology forced into one book and it's not pretty.
Frost Burned also included some Adam POV chapters, which was exciting at first, until I realized that Briggs was not going to make these chapters anymore inciteful or valuable to the plot or characters--INCLUDING THE POV CHARACTER.
I put this book down for almost 2 whole weeks trying to figure out if it was worth it to finish it. If this was my last Mercy Thompson book. As a reader I feel so angry that I was tricked into reading about vampire fight club. I don't want vampire fight club, that's not what this book was when I started it or even in the middle of it.
Except I have heard the next book is really good, with Adam's ex-wife and such. Out of FOMO I did eventually give in to the audiobook. it was available at my local library and I only had like two hours left of listening.
I'd like to say the two hours were better than I expected, but they weren't, in fact I feel like it was a lot worse.
I want to say you should just skip this book altogether, but I'm not sure if any of these awful plot points will come up again, so maybe you have to. Or maybe just read a summary somewhere? Or put it on 4x speed in audiobook? I don't know. It's really not great. Why is Mercy shifting from quirky, fun tough guy to winy girlfriend? SIGH. Help. I'm picking up the next one, but it might take me six months to read it if it's anything like this one. And if it's bad, I'm done with Mercy. *RAGE ENDED*
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Sexual content