SNOW LIKE ASHES by Sara Raasch

Rating: D
Synopsis:
Game of Thrones meets Graceling in this striking fantasy tale of dark magic, dangerous politics, and discovering your true self. Sara Raasch’s debut fantasy is a lightning-fast story of loyalty, love, and controlling one’s destiny.

Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. The Winterians' only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been searching for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild their kingdom ever since.

Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend, Winter’s future king—she would do anything to help Winter rise to power again. So when scouts discover the location of half of the ancient locket that can restore their magic, Meira decides to go after it herself—only to find herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics, and to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.

My thoughts on the book:
I had fairly high hopes for Snow like Ashes due to the great reviews and the fact that it's high fantasy. I love me a good fantasy novel. However, this book was not good. The world-building was lacking, the characters were obnoxious and two-dimensional, and the writing was bad. The pacing was super slow, and this book should have been at least 100 pages shorter. The author just kept rambling on and on about useless crap instead of explaining what needed to be explained, though. 

Meira was a super annoying character. She whined constantly, and she was extremely immature. She also didn't grow at all, which made the book really boring. Mather had no personality in my opinion. He was an okay character, but he was just really dull. Theron was at least likable, but he was so stubborn. The other secondary characters didn't stand out, and I've already forgotten most of their names. None of the characters had any personality whatsoever. 

The plot was pretty straight forward, and none of the "surprises" actually surprised me. The pacing was torturously slow, but that could have been because I didn't give a crap what happened to Meira. I actually wanted her to die so she'd stop her whining. The love triangle was typical and annoying. The idea itself was a bit interesting, but due to the lack of world-building, it fell flat. A lot could have been done with the four seasons kingdoms and the rhythms kingdoms, but all that potential was wasted. The writing itself was just flat and awful. There were tons of info dumps and certain parts of the setting were overly described, but the rules of the world were never discussed. The ending tied up everything nicely and left room for the sequel, but I wont' be reading it.

Overall, I'd recommend skipping this one. It does not live up to the hype.