I usually love fairy tale retellings and reimaginings but you're always going to compare them to what else is out there and for me this one just doesn't make the top of my list for Snow White stories. The concept was interesting but I found the pacing to be slow and the world to be flat.

I was excited to read STEALING SNOW as I enjoy fairytale retellings, but unfortunately STEALING SNOW was not the book for me. I’m sure other readers will love it!

Thank you for the chance to review this book, however, unfortunately, I was unable to read and review this title before it was archived.

I will be unable to provide a review of the book at this time, but do appreciate the approval from the publisher to have a chance at reading this as an advanced read. Thank you.

I had a tough time getting into this book. Sadly I ended up not finishing this book at all. I do enjoy other books by her, but this didn't catch my attention.

Stealing Snow By Danielle Paige
http://www.book-swoon.com/blog/2017/6/13/stealing-snow-by-danielle-paige

Edgy and with twisted magic, Stealing Snow is the first book in Danielle Paige's contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen" a book that has been on my TBR shelf for awhile now. As a fan of fairy tales, I knew I wanted to read it as it is not often we see this Hans Christian Andersen's tale told in YA. The opening book immediately captured my attention but unfortunately dimmed as the story and characters progressed from Whittaker Hospital to the frozen Kingdom of Algid.

Stealing Snow creatively incorporates many of the characters, magic, and objects from the original source. Readers can find the legend of the cursed and splintered mirror, and Kai, Gerda, and the River Witch’s characters, even the Little Robber Girl, the snow bees, and red shoes make an appearance, but it was surprisingly Whittaker Psychiatric Hospital that I found the most fascinating.

The story opens in an asylum filled with odd and vivid characters and writing that easily captured my attention. There's Wing who thinks she can fly, Pi the code breaker, Magpie the resident thief, and Bale the boy of fire who Snow gives her her heart to. Snow's interaction with each character and just the writing, in general, sucked me in.

Somehow though, as the story progressed the characters and the world just didn't stand out nor resonate with me any longer. A handsome thief named Jagger, the River Witch Nepenthe, King Lazar, and Gerda and Kai, are all characters inhabiting the cursed Kingdom of Algid that Snow gets pulled into but they just didn't feel fleshed out. Yes, they each had fascinating roles and I liked the twists given to each but their relationship with Snow just felt rushed. Even the romance(s), usually my weak point, didn't capture my interest.

Stealing Snow felt like two separate books to me and it was the writing in the first half grabbed me whereas the second and later half did not. I was so excited to visit the snow land of the Snow Queen and meet its characters, maybe too much to my disappointment.

This is my first read with Danielle Page and I'm definitely curious enough to try her bestselling series, Dorothy Must Die, which so many readers rave about. I may at some point continue with the series as I would like to know what happens to Snow.

I made it about 60 pages into this one before I had to give up. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but I could not get into it at all. I was pretty bored, and not even remotely interested in the story or the characters. I didn’t care much for the writing style, either, which was kinda depressing because I loved Danielle’s short story in Slasher Girls and Monster Boys. I had pretty high hopes for this one but sadly it did not deliver. I was going to try to make it to 100 pages, but I didn’t like the feel of the book enough to take a chance and I didn’t feel as if it would improve much.

I give the book three stars. It has way too much of YA cliches going on. I found the writing style hard to follow and at times confusing. There was not much of a plot. I was expecting a bit more in the is retelling in this retelling of Snow White and that might be a problem in my end. I am on the fence for recommending.

Imaginative retelling of the classic fairy tale, The Snow Queen.