Book Review: Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario

Title: Turtle Under Ice

Author: Juleah del Rosario

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction/Books in Verse

Number of Pages: 268

Rating: C

Recommended?: No

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For some reason, I thought this book was going to be way more intense than it actually was. The way it says the main character’s sister ‘disappears’ makes it sound like there are actual stakes, but it’s obvious from the beginning she’s alive and well and doing some soul-searching.

The story is about two sisters and their personal crises over the death of their mother years before and their step-mother’s miscarriage, and the myriad ways they cope with their sadness. The older sister, Ariana, takes it particularly hard whereas Rowena pretends she’s fine in order to be her family’s rock. The problem with this book for me was that it just wasn’t as emotionally affecting as it tried to be.

I didn’t care about the characters at all; they didn’t seem to have strong or distinct personalities. I went through the duration of the story apathetic despite potentially heavy and powerful subject matter. I guess this book might do more for other readers than it did for me, but I had to really concentrate to remember what happened in the book for my review.