Freeze Tag by Caroline B. Cooney

This is a bit of a short novel, one I wouldn't normally give a second glance, the only reason I picked this book up is the author. I have a trilogy by Caroline B. Cooney called "Losing Christina" which is a really awesome creepy trilogy with psycho sadist arsonist and a very cool heroine who manages to defeat them without any help or support. I loved this series enough that I've re-read it a couple of times so when I saw her name on the cover I bought it without a second thought.

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

When Meghan and West first played Freeze Tag with Lannie, it was no ordinary game. Because when Lannie tagged someone, they really froze. Icy blue and cold. Like death.Now Meghan, West, and Lannie are in high school, and Meghan and West are in love. They're the perfect couple. But Lannie is determined to have West for her very own... and if she doesn't get her way, she'll freeze Meghan... to death.

The Summary:

I'm not usually into creepy books, I can never sleep at night when I finish an especially creepy book, but I really like Caroline B. Cooney's books for some reason, even though all four that I've read so far have been creepy and about victimized children (which should make it worse but for some reason it doesn't). In this book Lannie is (or seems to me to be) a sort of cursed witchy immortal with freezing powers. The main character Meghan is a bit too wussy but I think that might be because she's been scared of Lannie since she was a kid, she doesn't do anything to defend herself and depends on others to deal with Lannie. Lannie forces West to leave Meghan and date her, threatening to freeze his younger sister Tuesday, West agrees just to placate her and continues seeing Meghan without telling her...but she knows and catches them together. So the story continues with them trying to resist her and her always knowing when they don't follow her commands...see creepy. Anyways, I discovered that this book is different than the ones I like in a different way...since this book is aimed at a slightly younger age group (I'm guessing from the way it's written, pre-teen maybe) and still has the moral-at-the-end-of-the-story thing going on...which was weird and made for a ending that was, well, not happy exactly..It wasn't a sad ending, It just wasn't the HEA I was expecting from a pre-teen book..it was more of a coming-of-age maturity book in the end, although it was harder to notice during the book.

The Verdict:

I don't like creepy books, but as a creepy book (and I mean creepy, because this isn't nearly enough to be considered horror) it drew me in enough that I wanted to finish. I did not like the ending, I generally don't like books where the entire book was just for the hero/heroine to learn a lesson and nothing good happens at the end. In conclusion, if you want a slightly creepy book to try out, this is fine, but its just too childish for anything else. Losing Christina trilogy was way better.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all