Why "The Fire & Ice Book Series" is Middle Grade Fiction | Olivia J

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs," -Stephen King

I love indie authors. I love supporting indie authors. It's basically a part of my brand at this point. 

I also believe that all feedback is good feedback - save from things that are purely subjective and comments that aren't constructive criticism. 

I know that a lot of people love this series. I know that Erin has found a lot of success with this series, and that's great. I'm glad other people have enjoyed it and have been inspired by it. 

However, I personally don't get the hype. 

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If you're interested, my review for The Elementals can be found under the 2 star rating section here, and my review for The Lost Dreamer can be found under the 3 star rating section here, but they're not essential to understanding this blog post. 

But let's get on with why you actually clicked on this blog post . . . 

The Fire & Ice Book Series is Middle Grade Fiction

Forbes herself brands the Fire & Ice Book Series as a YA fantasy series, which is incorrect on several levels. The characters are sixteen, so that must mean it's YA, right? 

Wrong. 

This series is Middle Grade. It's not Young Adult.  It's important that you know this right off the bat, because if you go into this book thinking it's MG fantasy, then you'll probably like it. Unfortunately, I went into F&I series believing that it was YA, and this greatly impacted my perception of the series. 

I found this amazing article on Writer's Digest about the key differences between MG and YA.  It makes compelling points on why F&I is not YA. I will be using this article as evidence to support my points. I highly recommend checking this post out - it's super insightful.

The complexity and themes are what differentiates these two genres - not just age ranges. MG usually has to do with friendship, family, and the character's reactions to the immediate world around them. However, YA concerns itself with love, changing relationships, how the character fits into the world on a grander scale, and self-discovery/reflection. YA often tackles heavier and more nuanced content and themes, and MG has more of a focus on adventure and good overcoming evil. 

In all these cases, F&I fits the criteria for MG and not YA. I'm not saying that F&I should have been grimdark, but what I am saying is that in order for F&I to truly qualify for a YA title, it must earn it by fulfilling the conventions of the genre. 

For example, our main character Alice Hanley - and all of the characters for that matter - are undeniably good. The Elementals are good, and the Creatures of the Night Oak Forest and Cleo Lennox are bad. This kind of simplistic, black and white categorization is usually nowhere to be found in YA books, because teens have the self-awareness that the world and people are much more complex than that. When reading The Lost Dreamer, I felt so much sympathy for Cleo Lennox. She has the potential to be such an interesting and nuanced character in future books, but Erin glossed over all of the interesting things we could have explored with Cleo and wrote her as evil and vindictive. Granted, the end of The Lost Dreamer left this plot open-ended, so I'm hoping for some more interesting development with Cleo. 

The problem is that the way F&I goes about tackling its themes is characteristic of MG. Things are allowed to be a bit more cut-and-dry in MG, but not YA. F&I does a whole lot of telling in every aspect (characters, world, everything), which, again, you can get away with more in MG than in YA - and this is due to the nature of the audience. Older teenagers are able to think for themselves and deduce information from context clues - aspects of the story and characters can be more subtle, nuanced, and not stated outright. In contrast, middle-grade readers need to be spoon-fed certain aspects. And this isn't bad, it's just a hallmark of the genre. 

Now I'm not saying that Middle Grade isn't as deep or as complex as Young Adult,  because that's simply not true. What I am saying is that the two genres are deep and complex in different ways, and they both have different methods of going about it. 

To clarify, the fact that I'm insisting that F&I is not YA and is MG is not necessarily critique of the work itself. It's a critique of the branding and the genre choice that Erin Forbes has made. She would find much more success if she branded F&I as MG instead of YA. 

If you go into reading this with the mindset that The Fire & Ice Book Series is an uplifting and whimsical Middle Grade series, then you'll probably enjoy them. 

~

*Phew*. That was a lot. Congrats if you made it to the end.  I haven't done one of this literary analysis blog posts in a while, mostly because they take a lot of time and mental energy, and those are two things I'm quite short of these days. 

~The WordShaker

The Vine Across the Wire | Olivia J

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened," - Dr. Seuss 

On my way to campus, there is a vine that has crawled up a powerline to drapes across the road along a wire. As the month has passed, I have watched the vine grow lush and green, strong and alive against the late summer heat. And I have watched it die in a brilliant display of color, wilting into leaves that rustle in the autumn wind. 

That vine has been a sort of constant in my life. I watch as it changes whenever I drive past. It makes me smile. And it reminds me that what goes up, must come down. That what grows must eventually die. 

The impermanence of all natural and human things, I think, is actually quite humbling and beautiful. It reminds us that if we don't give life meaning, then no one will give it to us. We are the ones who give life meaning, and you only have one shot to make the most out of every day, every week, every month. 

Everything changes. Welcome to life. If nothing's changing in your life, are you really living it? That vine wasn't destined to stay across that wire forever.

An abundance of things have been changing in my life. And if you know me, then you know that change and I don't get along. 

But with all bad changes, some good ones always open up. With the loss of a friend, I have gained more. Where theater used to fill my hours, I've been working at a job I love.  

Things are nostalgic these days. Casually Homicidal - my WIP - is coming along slowly but surely. I'm seeing old friends, finding out who's going to stick around. I'm learning to be independent, to be not just my own whole person but my own whole person who can also do her laundry and grocery shop. 

I'm moving forward by looking back. By seeing where I always catch coffee with him. By seeing the glow of Friday night lights on the horizon that will always remind me of the two of you. By laughing at the time my friend and I sought out the stray cats in the back of our local DQ because we're just that passionate about cats. All of the places that remind me of my firsts. All of the cornfields that remind me of my grandfather. All of the trees that remind me of adventure. 

So I think I can add the vine across the wire to my list that makes this old soul nostalgic. 

But I guess being nostalgic means that I've loved something so much for it to still follow me like a friendly shadow. 

~The WordShaker