Review: Frost by Marianna Baer

Title: Frost
Author: Marianna Baer
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Age Group: Young Adult
Category: Mystery, Thriller
Release date: September 13th. 2011
Pages: 396 (Hardcover)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Source: Won
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Leena Thomas’s senior year at boarding school starts with a cruel shock: Frost House, the cozy Victorian dorm where she and her best friends live, has been assigned an unexpected roommate—eccentric Celeste Lazar. 

As classes get under way, strange happenings begin to bedevil Frost House: frames falling off walls, doors locking themselves, furniture toppling over. Celeste blames the housemates, convinced they want to scare her into leaving. And although Leena strives to be the peacekeeper, soon the eerie happenings in the dorm, an intense romance between Leena and Celeste’s brother, David, and the reawakening of childhood fears all push Leena to take increasingly desperate measures to feel safe. But does the threat lie with her new roommate, within Leena’s own mind…or in Frost House itself?

Frost is a thrilling novel packed with suspense and a lot of suspicion.  Leena has been looking forward to living in the Frost House from the time she first discovered it.  It was supposed to be her and her 3 best friends, the perfect living situation.  Except there's been an accident, and the girls are stuck with a rather unusual new roommate named Celeste.  A presence seems to have followed Celeste into the house and Leena begins to think it may not just be her imagination.

The book definitely keeps the reader involved with the story.  It plays with your mind, makes you believe that it's something paranormal, but then switches to make you believe it's all in the main character's head.  You never really know the truth, and that's one of the things that I loved about this book.  One thing that disappointed me, though, was that I was expecting more of a scare factor.  The book definitely had it's creepy moments, but I expected my heart to pound or my skin to crawl, and that just didn't happen.

The only character I really enjoyed was Leena.  I found myself frustrated with Celeste a majority of the time, even though she's the one I thought I'd enjoy most.  I usually love the eccentric characters that aren't quite like the rest.  I never really knew whether or not to trust Celeste's brother, David, which made it difficult to like him half of the time, as well.  He wants the best for his sister, or is that just what he wants you to believe?  The author did such a great job of making you feel what her characters were feeling.

Though the book wasn't your typical ghost story, I enjoyed getting to the bottom of what was really going on in Frost House.  The outcome surprised me, and though I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had more paranormal aspects to it, I still have the story on my mind days after reading it.  Baer's style of writing is perfect for this type of book, which is definitely one of the things worth reading it for.