Just Read: Snow -- Part 1

I read Snow a week ago, and I haven’t blogged on it until now because I was still thinking about whether I liked the book or not, and how I wanted to respond to it on here.  I still don’t have an answer to that dilemma, so frankly, I’m just going to talk and see what comes out.

I thought the book was written very well, and that Ronald Malfi did a great job of imagery, and exposing the terror that was happening throughout the book.  I know my heart was beating hard at some points, and that I went through some unique turns of emotions; one minute I would be happy, then next I was destroyed, and at one time, I put the book down and stopped reading it for a while because I was so pissed off.   Would I read it again?  Probably not, but I would certainly recommend it to others.

Character Analysis:

I really liked the way the book opened in the Prologue because it immediately lured me in and raised my suspicions about what was happening.  I remember reading it twice because I wanted to get as much information as I could before I jumped into the story, because I wanted to try to figure out what was going on before I actually read it.  But nonetheless, I quickly fell in love with Todd and Kate. Todd, because of his tortured past, love for his son, his sympathetic and sensitive qualities….Kate for her bad ass attitude, crazy red hair, and quick comebacks.  Oh, how I rejoiced when they kissed! But at the end I was a little disappointed that they didn’t end up together, but I think Malfi made a good choice by ending it with Brianna and Justin sitting of Todd’s bed with him because it brought the story around full circle.

Now I mentioned earlier that I threw the book down at one point, and that was when Shawna died.  Out of all of the characters, she was by far my favorite, and when those creatures killed her off, I was beyond pissed.  She survived so much – killing her boyfriend, the people she grew up with, surviving in that Pack N Go for a week by herself – and then to just happen to walk into a room where a bunch of them are, and to get eaten alive… (Ah Breathe) I was not happy.  I wanted her to be the Amazon Woman of the book and to survive till the end!  I guess Kate took that place, which I am totally fine with, but I think Shawna should have gotten a little more attention in the book.  In fact, it seemed like her goal in the novel was simply to get the other characters on their feet, tell them all of the knowledge about the town and its new occupants (what they are, how to kill them), and then give them a plan to survive…and then she was useless and had to be killed off.  So yeah, as a writer I get that, but as a reader I wanted her alive!

As for the other characters in the book, I was pretty impressed with them.  I really liked Fred and Nan, and while this may seem cruel, I thought that their deaths were amazing.  I liked that Malfi had Fred get attacked right in front of Nan, only to have her corpse thrown through a stained-glass window in the church later on in the novel.  Impressive.  I think that both of their deaths served as breaking points for a lot of the characters in the book, especially Shawna because she had to witness both of them- and even see how Nan broke down when she saw Fred getting attacked.

Then towards the end, we got introduced to Molly and the kids (Cody and Charlie).   I hated Molly right from the start because of her attitude, and how selfish she was.  She didn’t care about anyone else except herself (and her baby) and Brendon, and could care less if everyone else died.  In fact, her blatant disregard for Cody and Charlie frustrated me more than anything because she would just let them wonder off throughout the station, not caring what happened to them, let alone having any concern for what they might do to put the rest of the group in danger, accidental or not.  Maybe because of my intense dislike for her, but I was happy to see that she was the one to have a breakdown in the end, and shoot Todd.  I kind of thought that she was going to turn the gun around and shoot herself, and was a little confused about why she didn’t in the end.  After all, like she said, she didn’t have anyone else, and I for one, couldn’t imagine going through a traumatic event like that by myself.  But that was Malfi’s decision, not mine.

Then the kids.  I felt so BAD for them throughout the entire book, and when Kate went to find them at the end of the novel, only to find them faceless like the rest of the monsters out there, my heart broke into a million pieces.  It was a great writing choice on Malfi’s  behalf, but I’ll admit that my heart plummeted a little on that one.