Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige (review)

Snow was six when her parents committed her to Whittaker Psychiatric Institute, and for the last eleven years that has been her home. Now a strange boy shows up in her room, telling her she’s the princess of Algid and that she needs to walk through a magical tree to reach her country. Normally, Snow would consider upping her meds after such an encounter, but she earlier witnessed Bale, a fellow patient and her boyfriend, being pulled through a mirror by fiery hands, and he hasn’t been seen since then, so a magical tree doesn’t sound so far-fetched. She does indeed manage to walk through the tree and discover the frozen land of Algid, a realm that she is supposedly prophesied to save. She’s only looking to rescue Bale, but the hero route seems to be a direct line to him, so with the help of a River Witch, a broody engineer, a thief and his cadre of beautiful female robbers, and her burgeoning abilities to use snow and ice as weapons, she finds him. Of course, however, he’s not at all who he is supposed to be, and neither is she and neither is the prophecy. Characterization is snowflake-thin and the story is a derivative flurry of worn-out tropes, awkwardly inserted allusions, and convenient plot devices. Any tension that arrives is quickly removed as the pace moves speedily to the next obstacle and/or love interest. There is some payoff is at the end, when the extraordinarily evil villains reveal how really extraordinarily evil they are, but it will leave readers suspecting the villains’ stories might have been more interesting.