A Frozen Heart
by Elizabeth Rudnick
Published: October 13th 2015
(294 pages)
Told in alternating chapters from both Anna's and Hans' perspectives, A Frozen Heart takes a sophisticated look at events of Frozen, exploring the couple's backstories, motivations, and doomed relationship.
A Frozen Heart was surprisingly good. You know all the character motivations and foreshadowing that were missing from the movie Frozen? I found them! It’s not a bad story when properly told. I went in with very low expectations and I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the book…at least more than the movie.
I really liked Anna’s perspective. She was a lot more relatable when I could see her thoughts and motives. One question I had in the movie was why Anna was willing to do all this for a sister who had shut her out. I liked that A Frozen Heart went into that a little. Like any good novelization, there was new background info that added to the story and I enjoyed reading it.
The other perspective that this story is told from is Hans. Hans had such interesting character development. He starts out wanting to prove himself but since he’s very entitled and cunning, he develops into a pretty disturbing villain. I loved the insight his perspective added to the story. For example, he knows Elsa can see right through him and so he changes tactics to accommodate that. Knowing Hans’ motives the whole time can make it harder to like Anna, who seems stupid, but it worked because Anna is naive and she needs to figure that out. I wasn’t as frustrated with her as I thought I would be.
The foreshadowing is slow building and natural and it made me anticipate what was going to happen (even though I had seen the movie and I already knew). I was kind of impressed that the author was able to pull that off.
There were exclamation points in the prose which I’m not a fan of since it makes it feel like the author is talking to me like I’m a puppy or something. “Elsa, It turned out, had the power to make things freeze! (pg 4)” WOW NEATO. I circled three examples of this in the book and it was mostly at the beginning. Either it stopped happening or I didn’t have a pencil nearby. Exclamation points are for dialogue, not prose. Besides the exclamation points, I found the writing funny and enjoyable to read.
There were lines in the story from the songs. Since I know the songs so well (who doesn’t), the lines jumped off the page and were fun to find. I thought it was a fitting way to acknowledge such an important part of the movie that you couldn’t really put into the novelization.
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I received this book for review from the publisher, Disney Press, in exchange for an honest review. I was not told what to say, I was not paid to write this review and all the opinions expressed are my own.
About Elizabeth Rudnick
This is the part I'm always the worst at—talking about myself! So as you've figured out, my name is Elizabeth Rudnick and I'm a young adult author. I'm also a Senior Editor at Disney Press in New York City. I've edited books based on movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Prince of Persia as well as Miley Cyrus's memoir, Miles to Go, which was a New York Times bestseller (imagine if Tweet Heart was too!) and a total blast to work on.
When I'm not working, I live in Connecticut with a big mutt named Jack Dyson (because he has the ability to suck up anything in his way) and have a habit of watching hours of mindless television. I like to think of it as research!
My name is Jessica. I love to read Young Adult and classic literature. I’ve been a book blogger for six years and I haven’t gotten tired of it yet. I’m a very curious reader. Writing about all the questions and thoughts I had while reading a book is the best hobby ever.
I haven’t even seen the movie yet. Sigh!