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. 

Follow me on Instagram @olivia.j.the.wordshaker

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. 

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*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

Forsaken by Brittney Kristina | BOOK REVIEW by Olivia J

"As a writer, you try to listen to what others are saying . . . and then write about the silence," - N. R. Hart

Long time, no see! I haven't done solely a book review in a while, mostly because I haven't had all that much to say about the books I've read lately. But this week's post features a fellow teen author, Brittney Kristina. 

follow her on Instagram @brittneykristinabooks

As with most of the books I read, Forsaken falls into the middle ground of some negatives and some positives. 

The Negatives

1. The Writing

Albeit not bad, Kristina's writing is lackluster. The sentence structure has little variation, and the style reflects an 'and then' pattern. While this doesn't indicate a poor writer, I prefer the medium in which the story is being presented to me to be poignant, effective, and descriptive. Kristina also relies on adverbs a lot, which clutters the prose. 

My other problem with the writing is that it fails to invoke emotion from the reader. Because of the aforementioned pitfalls in the writing, the moments that should be heartbreaking and tender fall flat, and the moments fueled with anger come off as irrational. 

2. The Length

This is a big one. Forsaken, reading at 266 pages, feels more like a third draft than a finished novel. This is because of several factors. 

The first is underdeveloped characters. Skylar Vail, although a fine character herself, falls prey to crying all the time. Although sure, these are times worthy of tears, but crying should be used tactfully because it can easily turn an emotional character into a crybaby. Tristan serves not much more purpose than to be eye-candy, which Skylar frequently reminds us of. 

The supporting cast, primarily the characters in the mental hospital, are outlines of characters. I frequently forgot who they all were and what their defining character trait was. The only character who mattered all that much to the story was Annabeth (a.k.a. Onyx). 

With more refinement, Skylar could reach Katniss Everdeen levels of awesome. With more time, Tristan could become a deeply complex, broken character. With more time, all of the supporting characters could become snippets of three-dimensional people. 

Some of my favorite characters were Mrs. Carter, Andria, and Onyx. Mrs. Carter seemed the most complex, and I enjoyed her relationship with Skylar. Andria and Skylar did have an interesting relationship, and Onyx was a badass, even though she softened to Skylar way too quickly.  

The second is the development of themes.

There are almost infinite ways to develop a theme in a story, through a character's actions, development, and change in a story, through symbols, contrasting values, parallels, allegories - the list goes on. 

However, Kristina only uses one or two of these tactics to develop her themes of love, brokenness, and healing. Occasionally, she'll use a situation or a setting to develop the theme, but more commonly, it's explained through two characters talking, or Skylar musing to herself. 

The problem with relying heavily on dialogue-driven themes is that they quickly become contrived and heavy-handed. Instead of letting the audience figure out the theme based on situations, character arcs, comparisons, and symbols, Kristina ops for just having a character say it, which is obviously less effective if you want the theme and message to truly stick with the reader.

Conclusively, 100 more pages of development of characters, setting, and themes would make Forsaken a much more complex and interesting read.

3. The Setting

Mild spoilers ahead. The 'dream' plot is set in a fantasy world where it seems that Skylar and Tristan are the only two people in said world. The message is that Skylar and Tristan are broken, but different and that love is powerful and multi-dimensional (literally). 

However, when you work in a setting like this, where everything means something, the author should make it clear that everything mentioned is important. When presenting fantasy elements like telepathic animals, pale zombies, and a Romanesque society, all of these should add up to reflect something in our world. Some elements were made clear, such as the whale scene, which was most likely an allusion to the Biblical story of Jonah, however, others that were left unexplained and ignored made the world seem underdeveloped and less fleshed-out. 

To combat, a retort to what I've just said would be the common 'maybe you just didn't understand the themes'. And hey, maybe I didn't. Maybe they went right over my head. But to that I say: it shouldn't take someone with a doctorate in English Language Literature to understand the importance of your setting.


And, because I like to end on a positive note:

The Positives

1. The Structure

The unique structure of this book is truly what sells this story. It's told through flashbacks that don't really feel like flashbacks, and they're actually quite effective in explaining the narrative and the characters. The time in the 'dream world' is almost evenly split with time in the mental hospital as well as real-world flashbacks, and this creates a balanced feel to the story. It's something new and creative, and I commend Kristina for this structure.

The structure also adds to the suspense and the mystery woven throughout. The cliffhangers and endings left me racing through the next chapters and add to the atmosphere of the novel. I could see this being a TV show, and I'd like to see more stories with unique structures like Forsaken. 

2. Enjoyment

Despite all of the things I've complained about in this review, I did enjoy reading this book. The twists, the betrayals, and the cliffhangers were impactful and flowed well. Forsaken was never predictable, and it kept me hooked. I genuinely did want to finish this book, and I dedicated a lot of the last 3 days reading Forsaken. 

In literature's most elementary state, its purpose is to entertain. And that's something this novel did very well.

3. That Strange, Self-Published Charm

This one's a bit harder to explain, but I've found it throughout all self-published books I've read. It's this passionate, home-grown charm.

Think of it like this: When buying an apple from the grocery store. It's firm, symmetrical, and a glossy red. Sweet and predictable. Tastes like an apple, sure. 

Let's say you pick an apple from a local orchard. It's textured, has stripes of yellow, red, and green, and a little misshapen. But it's an apple. And it tastes tart and earthy, like the tree was pruned with love and the soil was nurtured. 

Both in the aforementioned fruits are apples, but one is engineered for perfection and polished bare. The other is flawed and imperfect but full of flavor. 

It's like this with books published by major publishing houses, and self- or indie-published books. Albeit not bad, books from major publishing houses are written, edited, and marketed to fit the publishing industry's mold, sometimes at the cost of genuine and creative innovation. 

However, self- and indie-published books are outside of the market, and they have the ability to be imperfect but also to be avant-garde and filled with passion. Forsaken has this quality to it, and all self-published books with this feel are a breath of fresh air to the literary world. 



Overall, there is a fantastic book buried within Brittney Kristina's Forsaken. However, 100 more pages of development would refine this story into something phenomenal. 

6.5/10 would recommend.

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Man, I forgot how much I love writing book reviews. I should do this more often. 

~The WordShaker