Snow Lane by Josie Angelini
Release: January 2nd 2018
Format: Kindle
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: Amazon
Snow Lane Synopsis:
Fifth-grader Annie is just like every other girl in her small suburban town. Except she’s starting to realize that she isn’t.
Annie is the youngest of nine children. Instead of being considered the baby of the family, she wants to carve out place for herself in the world. But it’s hard to find your destiny when the only thing you’re good at is being cheerful. Annie is learning that it’s difficult to be Annie, period, and not just because her clothes are worn-out hand-me-downs, and she suffers from a crippling case of dyslexia, but also because there are secrets in her life no one in her family is willing to face.
Josie Angelini presents a story about a resilient girl who, in spite of many hardships, can still find light in the darkest of places.
Review:
I had mixed feelings about “Snow Lane”. While there are some parts that really stood out, I felt like the overall execution could have been better.
The characters are the strong point of the book. The author has wonderfully written the characters and I liked Annie and Jordan from the get go. The protagonists focus on doing what they feel is right even if nobody understands them. The supporting characters are written in a down to Earth and three dimensional manner where you can easily relate to them. There are instances where I hated Fay, Aurora and Nora, but also felt bad for them at times. Personally, I felt that almost all the characters were interesting and would have loved to read more about them. Moreover, loved the interactions between Annie and Jordan. One of my favorite scenes is when Annie and Jordan react to the Challenger explosion, as it is so powerful and moving.
However, the main thing that threw me off was the pacing and the story-line. Firstly, I felt the first half of the book was very slow and didn’t know where it was headed. The first half just talked about Annie’s personal problems in school and interactions with her friends and family. It was only towards the second half of the book where I felt like things were picking up. But, things picked up too rapidly and I felt like there was too much going on in the second half. I thought the author was trying to put too many social causes into this story in the latter part. We read about sibling rivalry, abuse, depression, social acceptance and what not. There was even a part where the author implies that JP is gay and I thought she would dwell into the LGBT cause, as it was unnecessary.
I really enjoyed Josephine Angelini’s style of writing, and I would love to check out her other books. This book would have been perfect if she focused on a specific cause with certain characters. Also, while I can understand that children from overly religious families tend to curse and rebel against it, I really didn’t feel the need for so many expletives to be mentioned here as it is targeted towards a younger audience.
Overall, “Snow Lane” is a very nice story but slightly missed its mark in becoming something great.
