Tag: throwbackthursday

Throwback Thursday: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

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ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

Today I’m reviewing a book that I only recently acquired but that was published back in 2012. It’s one of those books where you feel you must be the last person in the world to get around to reading it. It’s The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

The Snow ChildAbout the Book

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart – he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm, she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning, the snow child is gone – but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

Format: ebook (423 pp.)                   Publisher: Headline/Tinder Press
Published: 1st February 2012          Genre: Literary Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

 

Find The Snow Child on Goodreads

My Review

Followers of my blog (hello, you 500 or so lovely people) will know that I’m not a real fan of books with a fantasy or supernatural element. I do realise that statement will be anathema to an awful lot of people!   However, if the story is well-told, has wonderful characters and a superb sense of place then I too can fall in love with a story which also has a mystical or supernatural component. As The Snow Child had those first three things (in abundance), I’m happy to say the aspect of the story which is in essence a retelling of a Russian folktale didn’t mar my enjoyment of the book overall.

Whether the child that appears following the construction of the snow girl by Mabel and Jack is a real girl or the snow girl come to life didn’t really become the focus of the book for me. What I really fell in love with was Mabel and Jack, their life together and the author’s depiction of the harsh but beautiful Alaskan landscape. I really loved that we get to see a relationship between two older people and that, despite the pressures of trying to eke out a living in the wilds of Alaska and their shared grief at not being blessed with a child of their own, there are still moments of tenderness between them. I grew fond of their idiosyncrasies such as Mabel’s habit of waiting until dinner was served before broaching a difficult subject (so Jack’s beans got cold again).  And I loved their moments of playfulness – snowball fights, making snow angels, ice-skating, dancing.

The descriptions of the landscape of Alaska were really wonderful, conveying both its beauty, isolation and its dangers.

‘The sun was setting down the river, casting a cold pink hue along the white-capped mountains that framed both sides of the valley. Upriver, the willow shrubs and gravel bars, the spruce forests and low-lying poplar stands, swelled to the mountains in a steely blue. No fields or fences, homes or roads; not a single living soul as far as she could see in any direction. Only wilderness. It was beautiful, Mabel knew, but it was a beauty that ripped you open and scoured you clean so that you were left helpless and exposed, if you lived at all.’

There many other things I enjoyed about The Snow Child:

  • The picture of daily life
  • Esther and George – larger than life characters and true friends to Mabel and Jack
  • The sense of community and the willingness of neighbours to come together when help is needed
  • The sheer courage, resilience and determination of pioneers like Mabel and Jack, and Esther and George in attempting to carve out a living in such an unforgiving environment
  • The celebration of ‘indoor’ skills like preserving, baking and sewing and ‘outdoor’ skills like trapping, tracking, foraging
  • The wisdom of Mabel’s sister, Ada, in her letters:

‘We are allowed to do that, are we not…? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow?’

‘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.’

I’m grateful to Zuky, who runs the wonderful Book Bum Book Club on Goodreads, for coming up with the theme for December of Baby, It’s Cold Outside that motivated me to read The Snow Child.   It’s a lovely book, full of magical moments and deserving of the praise it has received.

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In three words: Magical, atmospheric, emotional

Try something similar…The Good People by Hannah Kent (click here to read my review)

Eowyn IveyAbout the Author

Eowyn Ivey’s first novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and an international bestseller. Her newest novel To the Bright Edge of the World was released in August 2016. Eowyn was raised in Alaska and continues to live there with her husband and two daughters.

Connect with Eowyn

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Christmas 4

Throwback Thursday: The Existence of Pity by Jeannie Zokan

whatcathyreadnext

ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It’s designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

Today I’m reviewing another book that has been in my TBR pile for way too long – The Existence of Pity by Jeannie Zokan. I want to thank Jeannie for her patience in waiting so long for my review.

TheExistenceofPityAbout the Book

Growing up in a lush valley in the Andes mountains, sixteen-year-old Josie Wales is mostly isolated from the turbulence brewing in 1976 Colombia. As the daughter of missionaries, Josie feels torn between their beliefs and the need to choose for herself. She soon begins to hide things from her parents, like her new boyfriend, her trips into the city, and her explorations into different religions. Josie eventually discovers her parents’ secrets are far more insidious. When she attempts to unravel the web of lies surrounding her family, each thread stretches to its breaking point. Josie tries to save her family, but what happens if they don’t want to be saved?

Click here to view a selection of photographs Jeannie has taken of places that feature in the book alongside some short excerpts from The Existence of Pity.

To view the book trailer, click here

Format: eBook (240 pp.)                 Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
Published: 14th November 2016   Genre: Contemporary Fiction, YA

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Existence of Pity on Goodreads

My Review

The Existence of Pity is a really interesting coming-of-age story set in the fascinating location of Cali, a city in Colombia.   I loved the insight the novel gives into the culture and landscape of Colombia – in fact, there could have been more of that for me. The picture of the missionary community, largely cut off from the indigenous population, with few contacts with the local people aside from those working as their maids, I found somewhat depressing.  However, I can appreciate that Colombia can be a dangerous place and that there was an element of personal safety considerations in that arrangement. Josie, the central character, is the one member of her family who seems to make an effort to connect with and absorb the atmosphere of the country and its people.

‘Cali was full of smells, each connected to a memory. Some, like the burning of sugar cane, reminded me of good-byes. The smell of the city – with its diesel fuel, cigarettes, and occasional aromas of cologne and bursts of air conditioning – was the smell of excitement and possibilities. The mountains’ mix of cool fresh air, rain, and coffee was sheer beauty. But the best smell, the one I knew even with my eyes closed, was our street. The smoky smell of the corner restaurant lingered among the fragrance of fruit trees, flowers and mown grass.’

Josie’s parents are Baptist missionaries and I did struggle with their certainty that their beliefs are ‘right’ and the people of Colombia need to be persuaded to jettison their own religious beliefs, to ‘see the light’ as it were. So I could really understand and appreciate Josie’s desire to explore other beliefs. I found her parents’ intolerance of her spiritual exploration and their unwillingness to believe her side of events that take place later in the novel quite at odds with their professed Christian spirit. Their hypocrisy, given what we learn as the novel progresses, is quite breathtaking too. And I really hated their treatment of their Colombian maid, Blanca.  I think you can tell from this that the author definitely succeeded in engaging me in the story!

I feel The Existence of Pity would make a perfect YA book as I think readers younger than myself might be able to identify better with Josie’s (to me, superficial) pre-occupations with which boys to date: ‘Tom was a good guy, and I really liked him, but did I like him enough to overlook things like his stupid hat.’ However, I really liked that Josie found a few people, include some Colombians, who were able to support her in a way her parents seemed unable to do.

The description of the book in the blurb – ‘a story of flawed characters told with heart and depth against the beautiful backdrop of Colombia’ – perfectly sums up this engaging, interesting novel.

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and publishers, Red Adept Publishing, in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Emotional, coming-of-age, thoughtful

Try something similar…A Reluctant Warrior by Kelly Brooke Nicholls (click here to read my review)

JeannieZokanAbout the Author

Jeannie Zokan grew up in Colombia, South America, where she read almost every book in the American school she attended. Her love of books led her to study Library Science at Baylor University then to attend The George Washington University in DC. When the chance came to head south, she took her motorcycle to Florida’s Gulf Coast to write stories for the local newspaper. She now lives ten minutes from the beach with her husband, two teenage daughters, and three pets, all of whom keep her inspired and just a little frantic. She enjoys aerial yoga, tennis, and holding NICU babies as a volunteer. But there’s always writing. Writing to relive, writing to understand, writing to remember, writing to renew.

Connect with Jeannie

Website ǀ Blog ǀ Facebook ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads