“FROZEN (HEART OF DREAD # 1”) BY MELISSA DE LA CRUZ AND MICHAEL JOHNSTON: A “HALO-HALO” ADVENTURE

RATING GUIDE:

 

6 – Life-Affirming and Life-Changing!

5 – A keeper!   

4 – Very good

3 –  Passable

2 –  I’d rather read a telephone book

1 – An absolute bomb.  Read at your own risk!

0 – Nothing will compensate for what I lost reading this book 

I knew it the moment I read the words “turo turo” that one of the authors must be Pinoy, and so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Melissa de la Cruz, one of the authors of “Frozen (Heart of Dread # 1)” actually grew up in Manila.  She currently lives abroad with her co-author (and husband) Michael Johnston.

“Frozen (Heart of Dread # 1)” is a pretty scary dystopian novel that seems to take place in a post-apocalyptic/post-Climate Change era.  The world as we know it is long gone.  Instead, people live in an ice world where almost everything else has either been turned into trash, rendered obsolete, or treated as the rarest of luxuries.  Living conditions have deteriorated to a point where it is a rarity for a person to reach middle age. Young people are sadly forced to live adult lives in a very violent society.

One such person is Nat, a young woman with a past that she doesn’t even know about and an inner voice that keeps giving her all sorts of weird instructions.  The voice tells her to go find “The Blue,” a mythical place that is supposedly the replica of the world that was.  A world where the sky is blue (and not forever gray), the weather isn’t always wintery, and plants and animals are not extinct. 

Nat enlists the help of juvenile mercenaries, headed by the young and handsome Wes.  For some strange reason, Nat is drawn to Wes.  He seems familiar.  As the journey progresses, Nat’s heart slowly warms up to Wes (who turns out to be more of a knight in shining armor than a mercenary).  Her memories also return, bit by bit.  The problem is, just when Nat finally falls in love with Wes, she also remembers a terrifying bit about her past.  If she tells Wes about it, it might spell the end of their relationship and her quest.

Overall, “Frozen” is an entertaining read; although I can’t help but think of it as the literary equivalent of a “halo- halo”.  It’s as if the authors borrowed elements from several stories/films and mashed them all together to produce “Frozen”.  If you’re familiar with movies from the eighties and the nineties, you’ll recall parts of Mel Gibson’s “Mad Max” and Kevin Costner’s “Waterworld” when you read this book.  But the author doesn’t just stop there.  She even includes anime elements, such as the power to summon mythical creatures.  Sure, it’s entertaining.  However, the book also feels too contrived, as if the authors wanted to make sure the book had something every reader would like.  It also felt a little awkward to be reading about young adults behaving like jaded grown-ups, so some suspension of disbelief is necessary when reading this book.  And here’s a question I never really considered until another reader pointed it out.  If water is such a precious commodity in the “Frozen” universe … couldn’t someone MELT the ice to produce the water? 

RATING:  3