Jack and Mabel's individual pains led them from a comfortable east coast life to the wilds of Alaska, where in 1920, scratching out a meager living from an unforgiving land seems to be the best they could hope for. Until in one spontaneous moment they build themselves a child out of out snow and the next morning, the stable and straightforward world that they knew shifts into one where white-haired children live alone in forest and where maybe the land that has taken so much from them could be giving something a little magical back.
Like fairy tales, this story has beautiful parts and parts that are dark and ugly and cut at the core of you. Mabel's infertility and her heart-wrenching loneliness and longing really resonated with me in a visceral way. The snow child herself is perfectly constructed, her character just as flighty and yet passionate as you'd want her to be. I BELIEVED her to be a child of snow personified and the magical realism in this book has such a light touch, even people who don't usually enjoy the genre could find this to be a story with a strong enough plot and interesting enough setting to offset the magic. I really loved the power of the land itself here, it's ability to create life as well as cut it short, the way it's whims were such an important part of daily life for both good and bad.
This was the perfect Christmasy-winter read for me. I really, really enjoyed it for both the heavy that made me feel deeply and for the joyous moments that shone like a bright light on an Alaskan winter night.
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