Author: Erin Bowman
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating: WARTY!
Note that this novel has nothing to do with the Disney movie, Frozen, which I review here. As I mentioned in my review of the preceding volume to this one, I don't do covers because unless they self-publish, the author typically has nothing to do with the cover design, but once again I have to observe that the cover demeans the female protagonist by diminishing her with respect to the male. Respect to the male, but none to the female! The tag-line for this volume, "A world built on lies in bound to collapse" will make a great epitaph for this series.
So after I thoroughly panned the first in this trilogy, Taken, why oh why would I go back for more in volume two? Well this was a library deal. I happened upon vol 2 on the new shelves (that doesn't mean that it's actually new - as in a brand new release - just that it's a new addition to the library's collection). I wanted to read it because it was Erin Bowman and I'd enjoyed Plain Kate and Sorrow's Knot. That was my first problem! Erin Bowman did not write either of those novels, it was Erin Bow, man! Luckily (as it seemed at the time) I realized that the one I had was volume two, and not a stand-alone, so I went looking for the first volume on the regular library shelves and amazingly it was there! I was thrilled, misremembering fool that I am!
Then, of course, I actually read volume one and discovered what a god-awfully godawful piece of godawful trash it was; however, since I had number two (I use that term advisedly) available, I decided to at least skim the thing and see if matters improved. They didn't. Volume one was rubbish, but at least it had one or two points of interest along the way through the stinking landfill that was its "plot". Volume two doesn't even boast that. It's nothing but nothing - a tediously boring road-trip with absolutely no noteworthy events to break-up the monotony.
Here's how bad this is right from the off: Gray's mind (what little this loser has) is wandering as he wanders through the endlessly wandering frozen forest. He recalls those halcyon days in the village he couldn't wait to bust out of: Claysoot, where he used to drink tea. WHAT? This village was cut off - nothing ever came in, and nothing ever left, and they have tea? From where? If the author has brain cells, she clearly sent them on vacation when she wrote this.
Here's an example of this clunker-fest on page 31: Gray recalls the tracker devices implanted in his skin, when "...one was unknowingly injected...." The author is seriously in need of a good editor.
In this tale, Gray and his two love interests, Emma and Bree, are traveling with some other nondescript rebels to one of the other test villages; one which was ripped straight from district 13 in The Hunger Games. Can you say "Rip-off artist"? Plundering Collins, Rowling, and others to scrabble together this cut-rate attempt at a dys-trope-ian trilogy is as pathetic as it is depressing.
As they meander through the forest, they discover another village wherein survives a young boy. His dog growls viciously at them, but then it's suddenly scampering around like the camp pet. Huh? It gets worse. When Gray's twin bro Blaine arrives in camp, with an Order prisoner in tow, the dog suddenly gets vicious again whenever either of them is around, including biting Blaine. It's so pathetically obvious that this Blaine is a forgery that it's sad, yet no one realizes it for several more days. At this point, Gray kills forged Blaine, but they leave the other guy Jackson, alive.
That was all I could stand of this bone-headed crap. It's warty. Period.
