Publication date: February 2012
Amazon price: $9.99 USD (Kindle)
Rating: 4/5 stars
Synopsis: An older married couple who fled to the Alaska frontier to escape the pain of their childless lives are shocked by the appearance of a small child who appears to embody winter itself.
TL;DR: This isn’t really “my kind” of book and the ending left me heartbroken but it is very well written and uniquely told.
FAIR WARNING – there’s a bit of spoiler-y stuff in here so if you think you’re going to be interested in this book I would just go add it to Goodreads and skip my review.
Trigger warnings for pregnancy loss, depression/suicide attempt (not graphic), and some descriptions of hunting and gutting/butchering dead animals
In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.
This is a hard book for me to review. On one hand I’m really mad at our book club leader for choosing it because the ending is so vague that it made my jaw drop, but it also made me feel things? Vague endings can be a killer for me (see Grist Mill Road), but this book was never really going to have a happy ending anyway.
Yeah, you know how all the original fairy tales end with the hero/ine dying? That’s not exactly what happens here, but the ending still left me with a gaping hole where my heart was supposed to be.
I thought this was supposed to be a sweet story about an old couple rekindling their love by taking care of a young girl, but nah. At least, it’s not just about that.
This book is a historical fiction that introduces the reader to the brutal conditions of the Alaskan frontier and what it does to the minds and bodies of those who live up there. It’s as much a story about tough life in the 1920s as it is about this fairy tale come to life. Ivy paints a spectacular portrait of their life both with and without the Snow Child.
If only I had thought to imagine grown-up Garrett looking like Jason Momoa
Narration-wise, mad props to Debra Monk for her exceptional voice acting. She didn’t overdo the male voices and her emotion was spot-on. I really enjoyed listening to her.
Final analysis, read this is you enjoy historical fiction with a bit of magical realism/fantasy and don’t mind a sad/vague ending.
Format read: Audible audiobook
ISBN: 0316175676
