Book Review: Dark Frost by Jennifer Estep

Dark Frost by Jennifer Estep
#3 in the Mythos Academy series
Release Date: May 29, 2012
Publisher: Kensington
Pages: 336
Received: ARC from publisher
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is a review for the third book in the Mythos Academy series. This review probably DOES contain spoilers for the previous books. 


Don't want spoilers? Read my review of the first book, Touch of Frost instead!

Summary

From Goodreads:

I’ve seen so many freaky things since I started attending Mythos Academy last fall. I know I’m supposed to be a fearless warrior, but most of the time, I feel like I’m just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me—again.

Everyone at Mythos Academy knows me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who uses her psychometry magic to find lost objects—and who just may be dating Logan Quinn, the hottest guy in school. But I’m also the girl the Reapers of Chaos want dead in the worst way. The Reapers are the baddest of the bad, the people who murdered my mom. So why do they have it in for me?

It turns out my mom hid a powerful artifact called the Helheim Dagger before she died. Now, the Reapers will do anything to get it back. They think I know where the dagger is hidden, but this is one thing I can’t use my magic to find. All I do know is that the Reapers are coming for me—and I’m in for the fight of my life.

Review

Are all my favorite characters back?

Yes! Daphne, Carson, Logan, Metis, Grandma Frost, Oliver, and (my two personal favorites) Nott (the wolf from Kiss of Frost) and Vic all make an appearance. Lots of squealing points for that!

But, sadly, their appearances are small. Daphne and Logan spend most of the book pissed off with Gwen and avoiding her calls, which was on one had totally disappointing because I love them and wanted them to be in the story more.

But, on the other hand, it was nice to get so much one on one time with Gwen. Gwen makes a kick butt loner in that Nancy-Drew-solo-mystery-solver kind of way. And with her very thorough first person narrative, it felt like me and Gwen were sleuthing together and hanging out like BFFs. 

Vic and Nott also played a decent role, which is awesome because I love them even more now than I did before (is that even possible?). And, even though Daphne, Logan, and Grandma Frost were MIA for a good part of the book, Jennifer Estep spilled some much-anticipated secrets about all three (yay!)

Does the plot start to suffer from series stretching?

The book kicks off with a bloodbath of awesome then follows with a dropped clue, a hunt for the Helheim Dagger, Daphne's magic revealing itself, Gwen's magic developing further (and here I thought her psychometry couldn't get any cooler), more fights with Reapers, sleuthing through Gwen's mom's high school journals, combat with Loki's evil champion and her talking sword (as much as the action of these scenes made me read with a white-knuckled death grip, the verbal sparring between Vic and the Reaper's sword stole the show and made me laugh out loud), more sleuthing to find a stolen ring, and all leading up to a gigantic climax of pure win (and heartbreak)!

So, yeah, I was pretty entertained. 

Also? Puppies make everything better.

I noticed the writing

It's been a while since I read the previous book in the series, so I was a little rusty on the details. Thankfully, Jennifer Estep is a recapping master and she filled me in on everything that went down in Touch of Frost and Kiss of Frost. So I was totally caught up to speed without having to take time I don't have to reread the previous books. Major points for that!

But the repetitive stuff also got a little too much after a while. If you've read the first two books then you're already familiar with Gwen's tendency to repeat things again and again and again. She still does it, but I love her so much that even while I'm sort of rolling my eyes because, yeah, I KNOW you have violet eyes and you saw something really awful with that girl and your mom died, its just, it's so Gwen. And I love Gwen.

The writing is also really heavy on the foreshadowing, and while I usually consider myself a big blind dunce when it comes to figuring things out early, I pretty much guessed every twist and turn with chapters to spare.

This really could have been annoying and admittedly it did remove some tension for me. But, the predictability combined with my feelings for Gwen made it feel more like I was rereading an old favorite where I know what's going to happen because, you know, I've already read it, but I still like settling in for a marathon reading session with my favorite characters.

Bottom line

The Mythos Academy series is like my favorite old sweatshirt. It may not look perfect anymore and it may not have the flash and excitement of a new outfit, but it's comfortable. Every time I put it on I'm instantly happy and I can sit curled up on the couch wearing it for hours of cozy bliss.

I love the character Jennifer Estep has created with Gwen and I'm pretty much at the point with her now where I'll read any book she stars in, regardless of the plot (even though Gwen is totally wrong about the food choices in the cafeteria. They sound divine).

Though thankfully, the plot of this series is looking pretty good. I can't wait to find out what happens in the fourth book, because, oh gosh, things did not end on a pretty note! It's not a total cliffhanger with the bottom dropping out right at a critical moment, but big end of the world stuff is imminent, and you know I'm always up for that.  

Explanation of rating system: Star Rating Key 

Do you have any questions about Dark Frost that I haven't addressed?
Feel free to ask in the comments!


Dark Frost comes out today! No More Waiting!
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