The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Book: The Snow Child: A Novel 
 
Author: Eowyn Ivey
 
Release date (if applicable): Published

Synopsis: I attempted to describe this book numerous times and just felt like I couldn't nail it the way I wanted to. I decided to copy the description on Goodreads to my blog. I still don't think it "nails" it, but it is closer to capture the "feelings" of the book then I did.

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. 

My rating: 5 Stars
 
My opinion: I loved this story. Ms. Ivey was able to capture the desperation, not only of Jack and Mabel, but of the other in the small Alaska town. Like Mabel to Faina, I found myself becoming more and more emotionally connected to Mabel as I watched her continue to spiral downward in her agony in her attachment to Faina.

It has been a very long time since a book has been able to wrap me into its' storyline without me knowing it is happening. When I first started The Snow Child, I remember thinking "nice story", before I knew it, I couldn't put the book down and wanted to simply wrap my arms around Mabel. 

Ms. Ivey was masterful in writing the desperation of the Alaskan outback, which was as depressing as Mabel's story. Yet, ends with a magic only as majestic and beautiful as our 49th state.
 

Source: Library
      

Would I recommend? : Yes. It was recommended to me and I am sorry it took me so long to get to read it.

 
Stand Alone or Part of a Series: Stand Alone