Ice Like Fire (A YA Book Review)

Ice Like Fire by Sarah Raasch

Ice Like Fire is the sequel to Snow Like Ashes. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did Snow Like Ashes. Snow took me about 160 pages to get into it, but once I got into it I really loved it! Ice Like Fire was almost the opposite. The first 130 pages were really good and then I found my interest floundering.

In this book Meira really grapples with her new identity. In short, the magical chasm is discovered early on and Theron and Meira travel to other kingdoms in search of the keys to unlock a magical door protecting it. However, Theron wants the chasm opened so that everyone can have access to magic and be equal. Whereas, all Meira thinks is that the magic is a power others shouldn’t have (because surely they’d abuse it) and that it should be kept closed. Yet, she constantly talks about choice, while at the same time making the decision for her people that they shouldn’t have magic. There are also some third-person chapters from Mather’s perspective interspersed throughout the novel.

I don’t know precisely what this book lacked in the middle. The travel to the other kingdoms was interesting, but sometimes I found myself unable to envision the descriptions. At times I felt bored and like I was just soldiering on just to get to book 3, which I heard is better. There was a plot twist with Theron that I wasn’t necessarily a fan of. I’m unsure if this is setting up for Mather and Meira to end up together in book 3. As much as I like Mather (for myself) I still think he and Meira are too similar. That said, the last 80 pages of this book really picked up and ended on a cliffhanger. As Sarah mentions in the acknowledgements, perhaps this book suffers from middle child syndrome. For me this book was 3 out of 5 stars.