Review – Stolen (Heart of Dread, Book 2) by Melissa de la Cruz and Michael Johnston (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Dystopia
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Release Date: November 18, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0399257551
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Heart of Dread series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

This is the second book in the Heart of Dread series. I liked the first book, Frozen, a lot more then this book. Frozen just had such an interesting blend of magic and science fiction and so much potential. This book was a bit boring and it was hard to get engaged in the story.

In this book Nat is fighting for Blue on the back of her Drakon and working with Faix Lazaved (from the Blue) to develop her powers as a drakonryder. Meanwhile Wes is still searching for his sister Eliza and is forced back into service in an effort to get her back. Each are fighting their own battles against the establishment and eventually they collide. The biggest question is where is Eliza Wesson and who is she?

I really enjoyed Frozen and I am not sure why this book didn’t have the same appeal to me. There isn’t a lot of description throughout so some of the settings were hard to picture. I also just had some trouble engaging with the characters. Nat and Wes are either separate or at odds with each other for vast portions of the book. Faix seems like he could be an interesting character but his character came across as very dry.

The plot was very predictable as well. I figured out who Eliza is fairly early in the book and was disappointed to find out I was right.

The story was okay but didn’t really engage me or grab me. I had trouble sitting down to read this because I just found myself absolutely ambivalent about what was going on. This was disappointing because I loved the world created in this series and thought it had a lot of potential. I was really hoping this book would focus more on the Blue and the magic there but it didn’t.

Overall this was an okay book in this series. I didn’t like this book as much as the first book, Frozen. The characters weren’t as engaging as in Frozen and the plot was very predictable. Right now I am undecided as to whether or not I will continue reading this series. I still like the idea of an ice covered post-apocalyptic world where magic blends with tech; but I just felt like the world-building was lacking in this book.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge