What do You think about Light On Snow (2006)?
If you enjoy a quick delve into the nature of grief, love, and family, but don't want to be overwhelmed with vicarious pain, then this is a good pick for you.The story is told in the first person by a woman looking back after many years on herself as an adolescent, but she uses the present tense for the current events of the story, and the past tense for longer-ago flashback events. I thought this made it feel less like a memoir and gave it more urgency. The author underlines the emotional elements of the story with frequent descriptions of the weather conditions and the landscape, but she doesn't indulge in ridiculous metaphors that might induce the gag reflex in the reader.Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this novel. Though the plot was predictable in many ways, the predictable moments seemed to confirm the realism in the characters and situations rather than feeling like plot devices.
—Jennifer
I found the book in a quaint, but minuscule secondhand bookshop in the middle of nowhere. Since I've read one of the author's books before, I decided to read this one as well. It was such a delight to find in the first place there. It was one of the very few better choices. And I liked the reading experience.A twelve-year-old girl, Nicky, and her widowed dad, Robert, finds a baby in the snow. The Dillon's secluded life out in the New Hampshire's woods are suddenly not so simple anymore. They saved the baby's life; they were responsible; and brave, but suddenly their lives changed without them being in the driver's seat of their destiny. The follow-up events opens up their hidden feelings which they were unable to share with each other, or the outside world, without them turning the key in the lock of their unspoken private worlds themselves. It is a book for young adults, I would say, and a really gentle,fast, enjoyable read, but with a deep enough base to have me staying riveted to the story from the beginning to end. The book addresses the different forms of honesty, grief, happiness, love and choices. The young girl observes the events and is introduced into the world of serious issues, bigger than herself, very fast. A relaxing and feel-good read. The book is also very well written with all the plots coming together perfectly in the end. I would love to read more of the author's books.
—Margitte
I felt the cold air, saw the falling snow, and tasted the sweet hot chocolate that Nicky loved to drink. That's how powerful the descriptions of events and sensations were. I was there when Nicky and her father found the bright-eyed newborn and with Nicky and Charlotte as they trudged back to the place where the baby had been abandoned. I was with Robert Dillon in the dreary police station as he was being interviewed by Warren...and with Nicky as she waited for her father. The descriptions of scenes were so vivid and authentic that I felt I was there. And the people? Shreve's characters seemed as real as you or I: Robert with his debilitating grief, Nicky with her pre-adolescent innocence and eagerness to LIVE, Charlotte with her sad naiveté, and the grandmother with her hustling/bustling activity in the kitchen on Christmas Eve. I could even picture James, the baby's father. Yes, he was confused and despairing, BUT HE LEFT A BABY TO DIE before going on a skiing trip with his friends. Woven throughout the novel are themes of love, death, sadness, hope, loneliness, and the need for connections. The past touches the present as the reader imagines the loss of baby Clara and the birth of baby Doris. Although the book doesn't end exactly like I wanted it to, it ends like "real life," and the reader is left pondering what punishment lies in wait for James and what future Charlotte, Doris, Nicky, and John will have.
—Jayne Bowers
