ALA Booklist (Sat Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Snow has been different her whole life; it's why she's been locked in a mental institution for 10 years, her anger barely controlled with a cocktail of pills. But one night a boy arrives to tell her she's not just different but special princess. When Snow's childhood friend is taken, she knows she has to follow the mysterious boy to the magical world where he insists she is royalty. Paige (Dorothy Must Die, 2014) reimagines Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" in this captivating fantasy, though it suffers a little from its base reality not being truly established before giving way to the fantastic. Mysteries are unfurled at a breakneck speed, sometimes at the expense of allowing the characters to have an emotional response. Still, watching Snow be plunged into a world of new people and experiences after being closed off and numbed for so long is compelling. Perfect for readers who want their fairy tales to have a darker twist.

Kirkus Reviews

In this series opener, a magical kingdom is cursed with perpetual winter, and its only hope for redemption is…a teenage mental patient.Locked in Whittaker Psychiatric Institute since the age of 5, Snow Yardley's lonely life is bearable only because of her friend and fellow inmate Bale, with whom she shares her first kiss. When Bale mysteriously vanishes from the asylum, Snow's quest to save him leads her into Algid, a fairyland besieged by the father she never knew, the power-hungry King Lazar. According to an oracle's prophecy, Snow's return will either break her father's wintry curse or provide him with enough power to subdue Algid forevermore. Leaving her dystopian Oz for this contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen," Paige (Yellow Brick War, 2016, etc.) gifts readers with a blonde, white heroine intent on saving herself and whose rebelliousness and hotheadedness feel all too real. The early chapters set in Whittaker are beautifully textured, but the transition into the magical realm is muddled, setting a tone for the worldbuilding that feels rushed. While the Snow-Bale romantic relationship is genuinely rendered, budding tension between Snow and Kai, an Algid engineer she encounters, seems perfunctory. The most intriguing aspect of Algid is that magic is controlled by emotion, enabling the author to address the fact that wielding power has real consequences. Fans of Paige's Oz series hoping for a similar experience will not be disappointed. (Fantasy. 14 & up)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Paige (Dorothy Must Die) pivots from Oz to fairy tales in this underwhelming offering based on The Snow Queen. Whittaker Psychiatric Institute has been 17-year-old Snow-s home since she was six and tried to walk through a mirror with her best friend, mistaking it for the -looking glass- in Alice in Wonderland. Snow-s love for a fire-obsessed fellow patient, Bale, makes life bearable. When she breaks into his room one night, he-s dragged into a window-turned-mirror; Snow then escapes Whittaker and is drawn into the magical, icy world of Algid. To find Bale, she makes a deal with a boy named Jagger and must confront her true destiny. Snow-s devotion to Bale isn-t given much substance (nor is he), lending little backbone to Snow-s quest, which mechanically ticks off familiar boxes: Snow learns she has a magical talent, must use it to vanquish foes, and reluctantly develops feelings for another. There isn-t anything inherently wrong with the ordinary-girl-discovers-she-s-extraordinary trope, but Paige doesn-t do much to enliven it in this fairy tale twist. Ages 14-up. Agent: Joanna Volpe, New Leaf Literary & Media. (Sept.)

Voice of Youth Advocates

As seventeen-year-old Snow is introduced, readers are unaware that she is in the confines of a mental institute. Eventually Snow lets them in on the reasons she is a patient: she dragged a friend along with her through a mirror in order to get to Wonderland, and she believes she has powers that create a winter-like atmosphere. It is not until Snow's love interest, Bale, gets pulled through a secret portal that readers come to understand the false accusation of Snow's mental illness, and that there is a world beyond her present realm. This world is the country of Algid, where Snow discovers that she is a long-lost princess destined to inherit the throne from her evil father.At first, the novel seems to promise something different from the typical storyline of a girl finding out she is a long-lost princess; however, the plot seems poorly planned and rushed. Snow's development from a former mental patient to a special-powers-wielding princess is too quick, losing opportunities for background and story-building as the plot moves on. Gerde and Kai have similar characteristics to the original Hans Andersen characters, and might be the most interesting characters. Snow's many love interests make it hard to take her feelings seriously, as she is quick to fall for three mysterious males. Within the classroom, students can look at this story as a comparison between the original tale of the Snow Queen and this one, examining how an author may build a character's untold background.Lauren Straub.