1.5 stars, maybe! ( )

"People drag their kids along as if filling the church is a necessary thing" a line from chapter 2 at the funeral it just stood out to me because I remember being a child dragged along to funeral of distant relatives or family friends I barely knew. Art imitates life!

"Some divine entity has taken dull scissors and cut out a piece of my and now I have jagged scars to remind me I lost too much." The author has a way with words great use of imagery and metaphors.

But even with that the mood of the books is a little dreary and sad in the beginning. I'm getting a vampire diaries / twilight /beautiful creatures vibe. The writing is good but the story drags takes a little long to get to the juicy parts. I didn't really like it. The story wasn't bad it was a great story but it was a little to slow for me. However towards the end of the book and in the epilogue the book takes a fiery turn which makes me have hope for book two I only wish the whole book had ignited this way. ( )

This book is actually pretty hard to review. Not because I struggle with what to say about it, but because I don't want to give anything away.

Lets start off with... it will leave you hanging. It's not exactly a cliffhanger, yet nothing is really resolved. For some weird reason, I wasn't outraged that it ended like that. I'm super excited to see what happens next, and now I'm (not so patiently) waiting for the next book.

The ice chases me, clutches me, and bites at my heels, sending shivers up my spine. The ice wants me back, but I run forward, toward the lights, toward the heat, toward a world that burns me, because I have no other choice.

I really liked Jade. She has a wonderful duality about her nature. Confident, but shy. Feisty, but calm. Audacious, but scared. Evil, but she so wants to be good and it's at moments when she is good that she shines. I just don't know how the author pulled it off without making it look like she's all over the place. Ah, but therein lies the beauty of this book. You don't think much of it, but it's important.
I liked that she is a proactive heroine - instead of waiting for things to happen, she boldly seeks out the truth, even if she knows that she may not like what she finds.

His heartbeat is the most beautiful sound in the world.

And the way she was with Connor, I was just... moved. It's her most wonderful traits that come out when she's around him - the way she sees him as so much more than he thinks of himself, the way she recognizes that he's just as broken and she's there for him even if she can't do much.

If I was destined to be the invisible by-product of social deprivation, I guess I am bad-ass at it.

But it's Connor that made this book for me. TBH, he stole every scene he was in. He's not your typical YA hero - he's not the jock, not the golden boy, not the popular kid that's good at everything.
He is such a beautiful character, and I felt for him so much - his grief and loneliness was killing me. He has a peculiar sense of humor (although a bit dark, but I really enjoyed it) and says the most awesome things like:

I tried Axe, but it was nothing like the commercial. If anything, on me, it acted more as a repellent against any female contact.

I liked that he didn't dwell on just how much of an outcast he is because there are bigger things in life. I liked that he had a lot of common sense and the way the author dealt with the aftermath of... Jade showing her true nature, because it was realistic. And I liked that when he realized he needs to fight, he fought with everything he has.

These two were so great together. I mean, the book is pretty low on the romantic even if love played a big part in the book. First, it's not insta-love. They are both intrigued by each other, but their relationship develops slowly and it's not all about the physical attraction. They both see something the other needs in each other.

So, Rochelle Maya Callen blew me away with her prose. It's beautiful, at times almost poetic (I sort of want to quote everything, lol), and the book is very engaging and I couldn't put it down. I wrote in my status updates that it's "very readable" but that's a huge understatement. I breezed through it, and couldn't turn the pages fast enough. There is a bit of a lull somewhere halfway through. I welcomed it because I needed it.

Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.

It also got very creepy quite a few times throughout. I was reading it late last night and I started getting all twitchy because of it. The girls, the voices, Jade's memories.

It's a sneaky book, you have no idea what's going on - but the thing is, neither do the characters! That's why it's so awesome.
But there are clues! There are a lot of clues and in the end I thought How did I not see that? How?

I was constantly trying to think up of theories - she's a vampire, she's a beast of some sort, and for one dreadful moment, I even thought she was a zombie. My theories got ridiculous at some point, and the ridiculousness hit its all time high when I thought she's a bloodsucking angel (sidenote: I'd read that! Someone write it!)
I won't tell you what she is. It's fun finding it out for yourself.

Don't worry, the author's timing is impeccable. Just as I was about to start skimming because I couldn't wait anymore, things start unraveling.

The character development in this was really great. I mean, you can literally see the change the characters go through as it's happening. I loved it so much.

However, there were things that bothered me, and that's why this is a 4.5 read, rather than a full five star.

One, Jade and school. Didn't anyone wonder where she comes from all of a sudden? Seriously, no one even questions this underage runaway - they let her go to school just like that. Wouldn't she have to transfer? Something. I don't know, it just didn't seem thought through.

Then, there's a certain character (that I will refer to as TC) who I had suspicions about that turned out to be true. Now, the thing is, while I did figure it out, it wasn't because of the clues given. TC is like "remember when I" and... I didn't remember. I had to go back and find it to see that she's actually shown us this thing TC is talking about.

And then the whole mystery that is Jade. While I essentially understood what she is and what was going on - I just felt it was rushed and just... not enough. I needed a bit more.

I did like the twist in the epilogue, very much.

Oh, for those wondering, this is a clean read. There's kissing, and some fumbling, but that's it. I must say I was a bit annoyed that the kiss didn't happen sooner. But it worked, I guess.

So, I think I said everything I wanted to say. I highly recommend this book, I really enjoyed it. It's full of mystery and it has a creepy quality to it that clings to you, and a sense of dread of what's to come because you know it can't be good. I can't wait for the second book. Hurry up, Rochelle Maya Callen!

I am proud to be a guest reviewer at ❤ Coffee, Books & Lipgloss Book Review Blog ❤! ( )

BookNook — Young Adult book reviews

I think Ashes and Ice is a solid case of "not for me". Although it wasn't a perfect book overall, the main reason I'm giving this book 2.5 stars is because the plot took a direction that ultimately isn't in line with my personal tastes. I never fully connected with the characters or the plot, and while part of that is due to faults in the book, I think a large part is just because of me.

Let's start off with Jade. I had kind of a love/hate relationship with Jade. The chapters from Jade's point of view never interested me in the slightest. Her thoughts always felt so fragmented, disjointed, and she always spent so much time worrying about her lost memories and the thoughts that haunted her (which, to be fair, makes sense), that I never got a good sense of who she was. But when I read from Connor's perspective, Jade felt like a completely different person. It felt like 90% of Jade's dialogue was only 'seen' from Connor's perspective, and it was always awesome. In Connor's chapters, Jade is portrayed as a very eloquent, put-together, kick ass, take-no-bullshit kind of girl, and I LOVED her. But I never got that impression of her when I was actually reading from her point of view.

"If you had any sense," Courtney says brushing her hair back, "you'd be trying to hang out with us."
"I'm sorry," Jade's voice is calm, almost monotone. "I did not realize I was welcome to sit with the whores and perverted bastards of the school. The invitation is noted. [..] I prefer to spend my time with decent, intelligent human beings, [..] not with dumb wenches who open their legs to whatever male walks by—"
"You bitch!"
Jade smirks—a devious and oh so sexy look.
"Or," Jade eyes Dominic head to toe with half-open, bored eyes before continuing, "Sorry excuses for men that only know how to think with one head—and not the one above their shoulders."
—Jade from Connor's point of view, Ashes and Ice by Rochelle Maya Callen

Then, towards the second half of the book, Jade started to really frustrate and annoyed me overall like when she started lusting after douchebag Dominic. Now, in context, it does make sense that Jade would frustrate me, but I just couldn't relate to her on the level that I wanted. It's hard to explain without spoilers, but ultimately, I felt like it could have been written in a different way that would make me sympathize with Jade more.

Obviously a huge part of this story is the big mystery. Why can't Jade remember anything? Who is she? Why was she covered in blood? Why does she get violent, creepy thoughts? But what frustrated me is that this remains a mystery up until like the 85% mark. I just got a little sick of Jade moping around, wondering who she is, but seemingly never making any progress on that front. It made the book feel a little fragmented and confusing, and I never had a clear idea of where it was heading. And then when we finally got the big reveal, that's when the "not in line with my personal tastes" aspect kicked in. I almost don't know how to tell you why I don't like it.. because ultimately there isn't really an explicable reason. It's just not something that really interests me. And the new characters that are introduced at the end felt very half developed, at best. To be fair, it was so obviously the start of a series, so I'm sure they'll be developed more in later books.. but it just left me a little unsatisfied.

Let's talk about the love interest. A romance develops between Jade and Connor, and while it definitely had its sweet moments, I never felt like it was as developed as it claimed to be. For starters, when the book began I honestly thought Connor was a girl. The way he talked about high school life sucking, and being invisible, and wanting to be with the popular kids, just made him seem like an insecure teenage girl. Once he became friends with Jade, that toned down a lot, which is good.

I wouldn't say that Connor and Jade's relationship is insta-love, but it does develop too quickly, and I think this is a result of the short length of the book (258 pages). When their relationship started almost transitioning from friendship to romance, I thought it was pretty sweet and that they were cute together. But then, suddenly, they're thinking about how they love each other. It's like the romance just jolted forward and I never quite caught up to it. I think the romance would have been a lot better if the book was longer and if the relationship had more time to properly develop. Connor and Jade were friends for a while before they loved each other, but they were never really "boyfriend and girlfriend" in between those stages.

For me, Ashes and Ice was an okay book, but I think people who are better able to connect to Jade and the romance will enjoy it a lot more. ( )

Actual rating: 4.5

(This review was originally posted at My Library in the Making.)

The only thing I knew before starting to read Ashes & Ice was that the girl had some kind of amnesia, so this one ended up being such a nice surprise for me.

Jade has a dark past that she can't remember. She often wakes up with blood in her hands, not knowing how it got there, and then soon she'd hear about a murder. She knows the answer lies in her memory, but it's always evading her. Connor, on the other hand, just recently lost his dad. He tries to move on and continue living as he'd always done, but the pain is always there inside him.

I really liked both of the main characters. I thought they wouldn't mesh well because they're both so broken and messed up, but good heavens, were they perfect together! They became each other's anchor to survival, but I love how their relationship wasn't cheesy or anything, and how it started out as friendship.

Now, some people might think there was insta-love in here - no, there's none. Connor was insta-attracted to Jade, which is normal because everyone seems to find Jade very attractive. Also, Jade only begins to get interested in Connor when she sees his grief. It might have started as pity on her part, but it soon turned into real affection.

Aside from the romance, the other great thing about Ashes & Ice was the writing. It was very fluid and poetic, making the characters' feelings even more wrenching and compelling. I liked Jade's perspective more because Connor was a little bit too angst-y at first, but he soon grew on me, especially with his sarcasm.

Overall, this book was a true mystery. I had a lot of guesses as to what Jade's true nature was, and just as I was starting to feel sure that I'd guessed right, another clue would be thrown in and confuse me again... which I really enjoyed! I love guessing games, and I can't wait for the sequel!

MY FAVORITE PART was Jade face-planting Blondeboobs on the cafeteria table XD ( )