ARC Review: The Winter People by Rebekah L. Purdy

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Book summary:

An engrossing, complex, romantic fantasy perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore or Maggie Stiefvater, set in a wholly unique world.
Salome Montgomery fears winter—the cold, the snow, the ice, but most of all, the frozen pond she fell through as a child. Haunted by the voices and images of the strange beings that pulled her to safety, she hasn't forgotten their warning to "stay away." For eleven years, she has avoided the winter woods, the pond, and the darkness that lurks nearby. But when failing health takes her grandparents to Arizona, she is left in charge of maintaining their estate. This includes the "special gifts" that must be left at the back of the property.
 

Salome discovers she’s a key player in a world she’s tried for years to avoid. At the center of this world is the strange and beautiful Nevin, who she finds trespassing on her family’s property. Cursed with dark secrets and knowledge of the creatures in the woods, his interactions with Salome take her life in a new direction. A direction where she'll have to decide between her longtime crush Colton, who could cure her fear of winter. Or Nevin who, along with an appointed bodyguard, Gareth, protects her from the darkness that swirls in the snowy backdrop. An evil that, given the chance, will kill her.

         After seeing this cover and then reading this blurb at NetGalley it was really hard for me to resist and not to request it. Weak as I am, I couldn't and now here we are. This blurb creates certain expectations I had for this book and sadly not all were fulfilled.

        The Winter People promises you a really mysterious and unique world, which you get. Maybe not that unique world, as some unique elements of it, and that is something I really liked her. Another thing that worked really well here is mystery, which was something that made me really happy. It all started when Salome was six years old after she fell in a frozen pond. She was lucky enough to survive that and now some years back it's time to face the consequences. It took me a lot of time to connect everything and realize what was behind this.

         I wish I could tell you that everything else was as good as the whole idea of the story, but sadly there are some flaws that ruined the whole experience for me. One thing, as the author put it love "quadreangle" here was really annoying. Boys weren't problems, some were a really good material, but I felt like watching a bee that goes from one flower to another throughout the whole story. Not to mention Salome's best friend. That girl is something I wish to educate on some things. Yes, it does present teens nowadays, but it's a really bad influence which I want to keep out of the YA lit.

        This story was engrossing, complex and enchanting even, I give it that, but there are many elements here that didn't work for me. It mainly focuses on Salome's love issue(s) and not enough on paranormal elements. I realized what it was all about nearly at the end of the book. It was a really good idea and it was all nicely put together but it could have been better organized.

        The author has a really good writing skills as well. The story was nicely written, so I really hope that in the future she will stay away from stereotypes and over-complicating things, which tend to ruin the story. And sadly they ruined this story for me.

Rating: 2 stars. 

Until the next time,

**Copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher, Entangled Teen, via NetGalley. Thank you!