This book had a lot of promise. A post-apocalyptic, dystopian world covered in ice and trash and full of magic sounds kind of exciting, right? Well, this books really fails to deliver. Now, I am not the biggest fan of Melissa de la Cruz. But I thought that maybe this one would work for me since it was a departure from her vampire stuff. In actuality, the vampire stuff is probably better.
Natasha is a magical casino worker in New Vegas, where she is given a map in a locket that apparently leads to the Blue, an Atlantis-type mythical island with no ice and no trash. She retains the super-hot, gambler Wesson and his crew of smugglers to take her to New Crete, but she just wants to get to the nearby Blue. And so they set off on a boring-ass journey to an island that nobody is even sure exists, with the inklings of a relationship based on lies.
The entire book from that point is just random pieces of information garbled together in some semblance of the English language. While reading this, I liked to think that de la Cruz cut her newspapers together and glued chunks of paragraphs into the rough draft. If so, this book makes a lot more sense. If not, well, I'm not sure how this made it past the editor.
For example, throughout the book a strange variety of things happen. The ship leaves port, encounters other smugglers, encounters refugees (elf with magic powers, the other two are like dwarves), they discover Natasha's powers, encounter a drakon (Dragon? Kraken?) controllable by the elf, face a failed mutiny, find the Blue, have a drakon fight with some random navy on the outskirts of the magical Blue place that apparently exists. That sounds like a lot to cram into 336 pages because IT IS.
The writing is horrific. Natasha discovers she can ride the drakon to save the day because of the following exchange:
Elf: Wow, too bad there aren't any drakonrydders to ride the drakon, lay waste to this army, and save the day.
Natasha: Wait a second...
That isn't even the worst part, but it just shows how this random information is introduced exactly when needed and not a moment sooner. These drakonrydders are NEVER discussed EVER before that point, and NEVER after it. Same thing goes with Natasha's mysterious powers, insta-love with Wesson, and her crap personality. This is a horrible book.