The Cold is in Her Bones

"Milla knows two things to be true: Demons are real, and fear will keep her safe. Milla’s whole world is her family’s farm. She is never allowed to travel to the village and her only friend is her beloved older brother, Niklas. When a bright-eyed girl named Iris comes to stay, Milla hopes her loneliness might finally be coming to an end. But Iris has a secret she’s forbidden to share: The village is cursed by a demon who possesses girls at random, and the townspeople live in terror of who it will come for next. Now, it seems, the demon has come for Iris. When Iris is captured and imprisoned with other possessed girls, Milla leaves home to rescue her and break the curse forever. Her only company on the journey is a terrible new secret of her own: Milla is changing, too, and may soon be a demon herself..."

The Cold is in Her Bones by Peternelle van Arsdale - release date January 22, 2019

Before we get into this review, here's some heads up about the future!  This is the last of my pile of TBR books that I have that haven't been released (the rest already came out) so we will be getting more at other meetings.  Alyse is currently reading the last book that she has and will post up her review when she's done.  Then we have to restock!

(Big thank you and shout out to Kathy Sharp and the TBR bookclub for providing all our books!! Check them out on https://www.instagram.com/tbr_teen_bookclub/?hl=en or on Facebook "To Be Read-For Teens")

ANYWAY-Back to The Cold is in Her Bones.  So I heard that this was supposed to be a twist of Medusa?  But after reading that I'm not really feeling it.  I really don't feel that strongly about this one.  It was ok I guess.  Not the worst, but not the best thing I've ever read (sorry).

I know it was by design that all the characters are brutally sexist, but I still didn't really like that.  Milla's father?  Huge jerk.  Niklas calling her Silly Milla any time she does LITERALLY anything?  Rude.  Cut that nonsense out.  But it's "supposed to" be like that because it's supposed to be a story about how the girl realizes "wait I deserve to be treated better than this" and goes about changing it, so I don't know how to feel about that either.  I love Iris and I lowkey was expecting more to happen between them?  But it was fine that they just ended up as sisters/best friends.  Milla's snakes were super cool though I love those little guys.  That was the most Medusa-like part about her and they weren't even there the whole time.

The plot didn't draw me in the way I expected it to either.  Like, this was a book that I had a very easy time putting down.  I especially felt the truth of that in comparison to the last book I read; I had just finished Four-Letter Word by Christa Desir, which is the literal example of how "just one more chapter and I'll stop" is the biggest lie any book lover could tell themselves.  I read the entire thing in like 3 sittings.  It was impossible to stop reading.  This book, though, I feel like is on the other side of the spectrum from that.  Don't get me wrong, it definitely was NOT bad.  But I had high expectations and I feel like it didn't meet those.  It is also very confusing at points because Milla changes her mind about things so often it's hard to keep up with what is happening.  Confusing and boring are not a good combination.

Weird thing, my favorite part of the story was definitely where she was sinking in the lake.  Just, that scene.  Fantastic.  That is my favorite scene in the entire book.  I also liked the epilogue.  That ending is actually what saved my rating from making this a 2 star book to a 3 star book.  Also, I really liked the back cover.  It is REALLY pretty.  On the other hand, I didn't like how unfairly all the women were treated.  I know that's the point and everything, but it was a bit overdone.  Too much.  Very frustrating.  ALSO: I didn't like the atmosphere of the whole setting.  The entire thing was very dusty, dim, and dark and not in a cool/mysterious way - I didn't like reading from that setting.  Sometimes it would even discourage me from reading the book in general because I just didn't want to be put into that mind-space the setting has you reading in.  Like some books create the most fantastical worlds or worlds that are average but unsettling and creepy and all other things in between but this one?  It was like beige as a book.  I could feel the dust in my lungs.  Maybe I'm just weird but I really didn't like that.  (And the forest that wasn't creepy or cool and just full of bugs?  Gross.)

In the end I gave it 3 stars on Goodreads.  I liked the ending and Milla had been through so much I felt bad discrediting her journey with just 2 stars.  I was reading some of the other reviews on Goodreads of people who also had ARCs of this and some people really liked it!  I'm just not one of those people.  It was overall an 'eh' experience.  Took me 5 days to read.

-Taylor

Reviewed on December 3, 2018