Audiobook review: Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Jack and Hazel are best friends, but one day Jack gets beamed in the eye with a snowball and suddenly his heart turns cold and icy. To the outside observer, one might think that they just grew apart when Jack decided he preferred to hang out with his guy friends at school. But Hazel knows in her heart something is not right.

When one of Jack's buddies who has, for lack of a better term, been a bully to Hazel, suspects that someone has stolen Jack, Hazel realizes he has followed the Snow Queen into the forest.

Clearly unprepared and lacking proper footwear, Hazel decides to go find Jack and bring him back. There's just one problem: everyone she encounters in the forest tells her that he followed her of his own free will and would not have gone if he didn't want to.

What's Hazel to do when her best friend clearly doesn't want to be saved? Does she risk her own life and try to bring Jack back, or does she accept that his heart's gone cold and that she's lost him forever?

In this modern-day retelling of The Snow Queen, Anne Ursu manages to leave her readers completely captivated and spellbound. As someone who continues to remain dubious over the trend of retellings and remakes these days, I was not disappointed by this lovely read. Ursu's prose is lush and vivid, while at the same time not being overindulgent. It is also a book-lover's dream with references to many loved children's books like Harry Potter, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time and many more.

Kirby Heyborne is the narrator of the audiobook and his voice neither adds nor detracts from the story. His narration is on the emotionally neutral end, but not so unemotional that it's not expressive.


Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu
Audiobook Narrator: Kirby Heyborne
Publish Date: September 27, 2011
Publisher: Walden Pond Press and Harper Audio
Pages: 313
Audiobook Length: 7 hours, 51 minutes
Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Middle Grade
Disclosure: Audiobook received for review from publisher