A review by rebeccamahanyhorton
Frey by Melissa Wright

1.0

I bought this book for two reasons: the summary on the Goodreads page, which seemed interesting, and the very reasonable price on Amazon. I didn't pick it up immediately, but being on vacation and having finished another quick read, I turned to FREY.

My main issues with the book lie with the main character and the plot. First off, I found it very hard to sympathize with Frey (or Freya), mostly because she shows a lot of tendencies toward being, well, a killing machine with zero compassion. She kills a bird and makes a frog explode with no remorse.

Spoiler

When she finds out that her mother cruelly plays with a human's emotions and then later kills him to serve her own needs, she has absolutely no reaction at all. In fact, she feels nothing but tenderness toward her mother when Frey reads her diary, despite the fact that, like Frey, her mother sounds like an absolute brat who feels no remorse about anything. No wonder her sister (Frey's aunt) Fannie hated her.

She also seems pretty whiny and dense--she is convinced that Chevelle, her "watcher" who is bringing her on a journey, hates her, even though there is basically no evidence to support this and it seems fairly obvious that he even has feelings for her. Despite the fact that she conveniently has no idea about her own past and has no idea where they're going or what they're even doing, she doesn't even ask any questions.

That leads me to my second point: the plot. Because Frey is "bound"--meaning her magic and her memories are more or less stifled--she can't remember a thing about her past. This means that the reader has no idea either, since nobody enlightens her and she apparently refuses to ask anybody. When she makes mysterious things happen, she doesn't even tell people--she just ignores them because she assumes that other people will react negatively.

Spoiler

For example, when she finds out that she can control the minds of animals, she hides it from her travelling companions for no apparent reason: they appear to like her, they don't fear her, and they're not going to kill her or anything.

And when mysterious things happen to her, she doesn't ask questions either. She embarks on an entire journey--first with Chevelle, and later joined by an entire posse of people--and not once does she even ask what's going on or what her role is in this. All that Frey knows--and all that the reader knows, since the book is told in first person--is that they were going on a journey to somewhere to accomplish something. And you know how when books usually end on a cliffhanger it can be suspenseful but at least lets you know where the story is going next? Yep, not here. I was so frustrated that I doubt I'll pay the three dollars to read the next book on Kindle.

The book had its moments--I liked Frey's relationship with Steed, and Ruby was cool--and it was a quick, easy read. For me, the negatives (the personality of the main character, the pace of the plot, and the numerous grammar/punctuation errors) outweighed the positives, so I probably won't continue the series. For the price, though, it might be worth it for some.