Frozen by, Mary Casanova
Synopsis from Goodreads: Sixteen-year-old
Sadie Rose hasn’t said a word in eleven years—ever since the day she was found
lying in a snowbank during a howling storm. Like her voice, her memories of her
mother and what happened that night were frozen.
Set during the roaring 1920s in the beautiful, wild area on Rainy Lake where Minnesota meets Canada, Frozen tells the intriguing story of Sadie Rose, whose mother died under strange circumstances the same night that Sadie Rose was found, unable to speak, in a snowbank. Sadie Rose doesn’t know her last name and has only fleeting memories of her mother—and the conflicting knowledge that her mother had worked in a brothel. Taken in as a foster child by a corrupt senator, Sadie Rose spends every summer along the shores of Rainy Lake, where her silence is both a prison and a sanctuary.
One day, Sadie Rose stumbles on a half-dozen faded, scandalous photographs—pictures, she realizes, of her mother. They release a flood of puzzling memories, and these wisps of the past send her at last into the heart of her own life’s great mystery: who was her mother, and how did she die? Why did her mother work in a brothel—did she have a choice? What really happened that night when a five-year-old girl was found shivering in a snowbank, her voice and identity abruptly shattered?
Sadie Rose’s search for her personal truth is laid against a swirling historical drama—a time of prohibition and women winning the right to vote, political corruption, and a fevered fight over the area’s wilderness between a charismatic, unyielding, powerful industrialist and a quiet man battling to save the wide, wild forests and waters of northernmost Minnesota. Frozen is a suspenseful, moving testimonial to the haves and the have-nots, to the power of family and memory, and to the extraordinary strength of a young woman who has lost her voice in nearly every way—but is utterly determined to find it again.
Set during the roaring 1920s in the beautiful, wild area on Rainy Lake where Minnesota meets Canada, Frozen tells the intriguing story of Sadie Rose, whose mother died under strange circumstances the same night that Sadie Rose was found, unable to speak, in a snowbank. Sadie Rose doesn’t know her last name and has only fleeting memories of her mother—and the conflicting knowledge that her mother had worked in a brothel. Taken in as a foster child by a corrupt senator, Sadie Rose spends every summer along the shores of Rainy Lake, where her silence is both a prison and a sanctuary.
One day, Sadie Rose stumbles on a half-dozen faded, scandalous photographs—pictures, she realizes, of her mother. They release a flood of puzzling memories, and these wisps of the past send her at last into the heart of her own life’s great mystery: who was her mother, and how did she die? Why did her mother work in a brothel—did she have a choice? What really happened that night when a five-year-old girl was found shivering in a snowbank, her voice and identity abruptly shattered?
Sadie Rose’s search for her personal truth is laid against a swirling historical drama—a time of prohibition and women winning the right to vote, political corruption, and a fevered fight over the area’s wilderness between a charismatic, unyielding, powerful industrialist and a quiet man battling to save the wide, wild forests and waters of northernmost Minnesota. Frozen is a suspenseful, moving testimonial to the haves and the have-nots, to the power of family and memory, and to the extraordinary strength of a young woman who has lost her voice in nearly every way—but is utterly determined to find it again.
My Review:
I really liked the character of Sadie Rose, she is a tough cookie but I also liked that we saw this softer side as her memories of when she was young came crashing down on her, the memories of the night her mother died and she almost froze to death in a snowbank but that night she not only lost her mother but her voice too but that was eleven years ago and now Sadie is having flashes of both memory and voice and the memories are not at all what she expected.
Of course you kind of have a little inkling of the truth behind what happened to Sadie’s mother but I didn’t care I wanted to see how the story played out. I liked Sadie’s journey from mute half prisoner to talking woman of the world. The awful truths about herself and her mother and father could have easily done a person in but not Sadie Rose they only made her stronger. I loved the other characters in this especially Hans & Aasta they were my favorites. My only small problem with the story is I’m not sure at the end if (hmm how do I saw this without a spoiler) …if things would have worked out so quickly or would more of a fight been put up or that that was enough “justice” for her parents. ( Read the book and hopefully that sentence will make sense to you).
This was a great young adult historical fiction set not that far from my home I thought the author did a great job at evoking the time and place in this book I just think the ending will be a problem for some people (I was a little iffy on it myself) but overall I enjoyed this book and would read others by this author as I very much enjoyed her writing. This would have been a solid 4 but the ending felt a bit rushed and not as believable as I had hoped.
3 ½ stars
