YA Novelties

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It really depresses me to give a book a negative review. However, this book depressed me as well as I read it, so After the Snow kind of deserves its negative review. Notice, my reasoning behind disliking this novel is not because of its monotonous nature. It's a longer and more complicated story that I be brief on.

After the Snow is one of those novels that one finds hard to connect to. Willo narrates the story, and has a strange dialect when he speaks. A majority of the time, Willo mixes up his grammar and wording, which is hard to get used to. I was fine with the quirky narration, but I found the narration inconsistent. There were points in the story when Willo actually starts describing events as a normal person, like you and me would. There, I became lost. One moemnts would have a Willo with faulty grammar, then the next moment showed Willo speaking fluently, and finally switch back to funky talk Willo.

Willo, the protagonist, is a character that will definitely raise eyebrows. In addition to his inconsistent talking, Willo also believes that a dog will talk to him when he wears a dog skull. It is probably supposed to represent something if After the Snow is an allegory, but like Willo's language, the dog skull appears and reappears often throughout the book. It is as if the author wanted Willo to be a weirdo for no reason, without any purpose or plot development.

The plot line of After the Snow follows Willo's journey to rescue his family. Sorry to spoil this to anyone, but this is not the primary focus of the book. Instead, S.D. Crockett chooses to explore the relationship of Willo and Mary. Of course, even this isn't really explored much either. The plot is erratic and has random events occur without any reason beyond causing chaos between Willo and Mary. It boggles my mind to try to comprehend the author's true intention when writing this book. Not to mention, the deux ex machina ending will not bring anyone to the table eager to praise this book.

I was really disappointed by After the Snow. There was so much that could be achieved with a world plunged into an Ice Age. The author just did a terrible job in executing this story. Characters are not well developed, there is no real flow to the story and writing is puzzling. I am incredibly thankful for the fact that After the Snow is a standalone, so I will not convince myself to give this kind of book another go.

Angie @YA Novelties