Book Review: The Snow Child

“To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as your were able before it slipped like water between your fingers.”

There are books that excite you, some that hurt you, and some that enlighten you. Then there are some that touch you so strongly you’re left uncertain of how to translate how you feel in a review.

This is one of those books.

The Snow Child is a beautiful, bittersweet story about an old couple longing for a child they never had. About their life, loneliness, struggles, and the ever growing distance between them. As a very character-centric story, I really liked Ivey’s exploration of her characters’ grief and how they got to where they are when we first met them. What I loved even more was how she used time, circumstances, and relationships to show us the healing process. It was slow, but so well done that my heart hurt and was overjoyed with the ups and downs of that journey.

Ivey touched on themes of marriage, loss, family, friendship, and love. Her writing was both raw and compassionate and while I loved it, its slow pacing may not be for everyone.

The Snow Child was also enchanting. Set in the Alaskan wilderness, Ivey captures the atmospheric setting of the place, producing vivid imagery that kept drawing me in for more.

”All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses. It was the flutter of moth-wings on glass and the promise of river nymphs in the dappled creek beds. It was the smell of oak trees on the summer evening she fell in love, and the way dawn threw itself across the cow pond and turned the water to light.”

Touching, magical, and lyrical. The Snow Child is a novel teeming with heart and wisdom, one that I will recommend and remember fondly for a long time.

[star rating=”4″]