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YES!!

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Reviewing Every Frozen Novel No. 1

Forest of Shadows:

This book starts out very strong but loses it's footing after the first few chapters. The writing in Forest of Shadows is meant to appeal people between the ages of to 10 and 12. There is nothing inherently wrong with the writing, it's just very predictable and the characters don't feel completely accurate to their movie counterparts. Where this book really shines however is with its set pieces. There are some very visually interesting scenes in this book that feel right at home in the Frozen universe, even if the characters do not. As well the action scenes felt exciting and there is a horror motif that was very refreshing for this franchise. Overall Forest of Shadows will scratch that itch if you're jonesing for another adventure in the Frozen franchise but really isn’t anything beyond that. It’s good.

Click Keep Reading for the in depth Spoiler Review

[SPOILERS] 

[SERIOUSLY COMPLETE AND TOTAL SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK]

The opening was very very good. Starting later that night when Anna and Elsa were 5 and 8 felt off putting in a good way. Having Anna’s parents there in her room sleeping alongside her to protect her and acting very sweet and nice to her felt unsettling, because you know the decisions that they had just made earlier that night. The wolf worked metaphorically as a representation for Anna’s fears. Having been unconscious of the events of that night I thought that her fears somehow knew subconsciously what had happened. She is playing with Elsa when suddenly, Elsa is gone and replaced with the embodiment of Anna’s insecurities which is what will hunt Anna down and destroy her. However it is later revealed that the wolf, even back then, was not conjured by Anna but by Elsa, who accidentally did an inception and implanted her fears into Anna's dream because she was repressing them. The wolf worked well as a metaphor for Anna’s fears but it works even better as a metaphor for Elsa’s. Elsa’s fear of being a monster that will only hurt Anna was born that night and continued to grow as she did. However the wolf stopped appearing in Anna’s dreams as Elsa learned to repress her fears (not good). Anna and Elsa’s relationship felt good in the first few chapters but as Elsa kept getting annoyed with Anna and Anna kept feeling too insecure to talk to her sister I felt more and more annoyed with their characters. Everything in this book could easily have been solved if the two just talked to each other; a trope that's common in a lot of fiction so generally couldn’t be faulted too much but this does take place after the events of Frozen 1. Their inability to talk to each other felt completely out of character. It didn’t help that the overall plot didn’t add anything new to their characters. It basically rehashed Frozen 1 again but with some details changed. Elsa accidentally threatened Arendelle with magic and the characters climb a mountain to talk to someone they believe can fix it, stopping at Oaken's on the way, then cross paths with magical creatures who send them back down the mountain in the false attempt to stop the problem when the actual solution is the true love between Anna and Elsa. True love being the answer is already what the characters learned in Frozen 1. The events in Forest of Shadows supposedly take place 5 weeks prior to Frozen 2. However, where the characters are at, emotionally, in Frozen 2 feels wildly disconnected to this book. One of the failings of this book was that Frozen has always been about Anna AND Elsa. I think this book would have been much improved if we had seen things from both of their perspectives. Not just Anna’s. I do like a lot of what this book does. The Nattmara felt powerful and frightening. It was a very creative creature. I liked many of the scenes in this book. Everything up to the Earth's giant passage under the fjord was great. I especially liked Anna and Elsa’s horse ride/SoYungs Blight encounter and the bold horror scene in the castle. The stand out scene in this book for me was The Ice Skating Scene on the river. It was a very clever set piece and Anna and Elsa actually talked to each other about how they were feeling. The magic in this book felt somewhat generic, and not from the Frozen franchise. The beginning of this book was very strong but the book overall got weaker over time. 

Some missed opportunities: 

The townsfolk should not have immediately woken up from their nightmares after the Nattmara was defeated. Instead they should have needed medicine. Specifically: Hot Chocolate. It felt like it was going to happen. They had set up that mint helped heal the animals somewhat and that when Anna and Elsa had nightmares that their parents would give them Hot Chocolate to help. Because the Nattmara's nightmare sleep was caused by Elsa it should have definitely been the cure. Like it felt so obvious to me but they never even resolved the mint thing.

They should have mentioned a purple cape in the library of missing objects. 

Overall Forest of Shadows will scratch that itch if you're jonesing for another adventure in the Frozen franchise but really isn’t anything beyond that. It’s good.

P.S. Elsa becomes a full on superhero.

P.P.S. Like for real there is this sequence where Elsa is wielding an ancient/powerful sword while staring down a monstrously tall white wolf. Black sand is seeping off of the wolf because the wolf is literally made of nightmares. The two of them are facing off on a bridge, the sun is setting, Elsa’s cape is being picked up by the wind. The two story tall white wolf and the bridge are all that stand between Elsa and Arendelle because the protective Ice Dome that Elsa put Arendelle under has shattered and has become a broken/jagged wall whose shards lay about the ground, and I need fan art of this scene right now.

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candace is so cute 😩💞

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by @info_seoyeon on twitter

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Princess Anna made a new friend! 🥺💕

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Some pride art of my OCs. :)

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!

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All the Alternate Candaces! (I think.) I did very basic poses to practice. Naturally some turned out better than others but I still like them.

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Colored version of a Candace sketch from here.

I wanted to experiment drawing Candace using only shades of pink (except for her blue eyes).

Btw, the outfit was inspired from a shirt Candace owns as seen here;

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Maybe a request for some Vanessa and/or Monty art?

When you dont know what to put in the background, put some random colorful squeres and call it a day

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"samus isnt trans" then explain this

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Candace is a perfectly written character for a sitcom like pnf. She is a fluid character that can fit into the mold of any episode. She can be kind or sadistic, she can be determined or lazy, she can be proud or self-conscious she can be oblivious or hyper-focused. She can be anything, unlike most other characters in the show. Phineas for example could never be most of these things. That doesn't mean the other characters aren't well written. In fact having distinct traits is usually important, especially in dramatic stories. But in comedy writing, having a character like Candace is a godsend.

Phineas and Ferb fans:

Explain your answer in notes if you can! I'm very curious to hear about what everyone thinks.