Short & Sweet reviews: Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep

Title: Touch of Frost
Author: Jennifer Estep
Series: Mythos Academy (#1)
Genre: Paranormal Young adult

Trade paperback, 350 pages
Published on July 26, 2011 by Kensington (Teen)

Summary (via Goodreads): My name is Gwen Frost, and I go to Mythos Academy — a school of myths, magic and warrior whiz kids, where even the lowliest geek knows how to chop off somebody's head with a sword and Logan Quinn, the hottest Spartan guy in school, also happens to be the deadliest.

But lately, things have been weird, even for Mythos. First, mean girl Jasmine Ashton was murdered in the Library of Antiquities. Then, someone stole the Bowl of Tears, a magical artifact that can be used to bring about the second Chaos War. You know, death, destruction and lots of other bad, bad things. Freaky stuff like this goes on all the time at Mythos, but I'm determined to find out who killed Jasmine and why—especially since I should have been the one who died. . .

My thoughts: I was really excited when I heard that Mrs. Estep was releasing a young adult novel,  because I absolutely adore her Elemental assassin series. The book is told in the first person            narrative, by sixteen year old Gwen Frost. She’s a new student at Mythos Academy, where magical warrior kids go to school. Gwen has been at Mythos Academy for about two months and is still         adjusting to the changes in location/school after the death of her mom.  While not a true believer in all things magic, Gwen starts to see and experience weird things at the school when she stumble       upon the dead body of a fellow classmate.                                                                                                

The whole mythological aspect of gods and goddesses in the novel was a refreshing change in what I usually read (vamps, weres, faeries…). Gwen was a likeable heroine, she’s snarky and witty without really trying. The secondary characters were great too, like Logan the love interest and Daphne the mean popular girl turned new bff.  The story takes place at a boarding school, and I thought that it would be like all the other typical YA books that I read, but it was fun and different.  The story was a tad slow in the first two or three chapter, but definitely picked up.  The ending was actually predictable, but overall I still enjoyed the storyline.

I would have rated this book a full 4 or 5 star but there was one thing that constantly bugged me throughout the book…REPEATS. The author continuously repeated various facts that were mentioned within the opening of the book…ALL THE WAY TILL the end.

Examples of what was repeated throughout the book:

1)      How things would have turn out different if her mother was still alive

2)      That Gwen was friendless

3)      Gwen is known as “that Gypsy girl”

4)      Logan is sexy and dangerous

5)      The popular girls are rich, and snobby

But regardless I am actually looking forward to reading KISS OF FROST (Mythos Academy #2) which will be publish this November 2011. 

 NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES:

NOVEMBER 29, 2011