Stealing Snow
Danielle Paige
Snow has been institutionalised ever since she tried to walk a friend through a mirror. On a serious cocktail of drugs, it’s not clear what is fantasy and what is truth. When she’s broken out of the Institute by a handsome trickster to rescue her hot lover, life is going to be more magical than she imagined.
I feel like I didn’t get a really good grip on Snow’s character. But then you consider that she has been locked up and completely drugged for the last 10+ years and you can’t be surprised. She felt quite cold to me, and never seemed to warm up. I’ll be looking for more character development in the second novel of this.
The back of the novel promises me that ‘her choices of the heart will change everything’. What we actually see though is her ?three? love interests all wanting to kiss her or for her to kiss them. What’s so big about a kiss? Seriously guys. Just chill. Snow, kiss them all. Deal with the consequences. This is life.
Dude! How could that happen? It was a twist I wasn’t expecting at all. And I still don’t know why or how it happened. Something for the next novel! The plot circled around, and gave nutty things the ability to happen. I think maybe it could have been overwhelming.
I’m going to give it 3 stars. I think it just didn’t give me enough of an impression to feel polarised by it.
Bloomsbury | October 2016 | AU $16.99 | Paperback
Martha has lost a lot of important people, and I can see why she does the things she does. But she came across as a selfish, shallow character that I simply couldn’t like very much. And considering that I was supposed to get attached so I would be worried when she was close to dying, well, I wasn’t.
So you might think I have given away the whole novel with my opening paragraph – but in fact, you know all of that information almost from just reading the blurb and reading the first chapter. That alone would have killed the novel for me.
This novel was awful. It was well written and everything, and the dialogue was believable, yet the plot left a lot to be desired. It was repetitive, and didn’t seem to go anywhere. I didn’t feel for any of the characters and the whole lot felt staged.
Who doesn’t love an underdog? Nessa is going to fight for what she has, and pretend she doesn’t care about everything else. Her legs aren’t going to stop her, when her mind is sharp. Her mind ends up being the thing that can save her. Other reviewers have picked on her being a character trope, but I didn’t have an issue with that. I appreciated that Nessa couldn’t see her own faults until it was to late – she couldn’t be too self-sacrificing after all.
This novel reminded me of another that I read a while ago, but never got around to reviewing (very naughty of me). It seemed to be aimed at younger readers, with just enough danger to excite them. Apart from the initial rather traumatic way that Izzy thinks of her brother’s death, it’s not too scary. I can’t think of the ideal audience though, apart from children and early teens who love reading. There are other novels which stand out for me a lot more strongly.
Ok, so another reviewer has pointed out that the novel is filled with predictable character types. I think that’s certainly true – plucky heroine protecting her too kind brother and tolerating the hatred of a foster brother who blames her for his parents’ fates. However, I didn’t find it offputting. It gave me more space to think about the implications of the novel, rather than having to do too much thinking about the characters.
This is some Women’s Fiction with a bite! This actually clearly attempts to take down societal norms, even if it is in-you-face with obviousness of what is being taken down. There’s a lot of drama, some of which is probably needless, and that fits in with this genre too. Contrary to normal for me though, I actually really enjoyed this novel.