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Little Snowflake

Little Snowflake

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As the author went through depression herself, we could feel Debbie's struggles bleeding through the book. The story balances the dark themes and humour well. The discussion of mental health isn't too bleak, yet holding its weight. Do take note there are a few detailed scenes on animal cruelty. Don’t apologise, Xanthe! Stop being friends with this asshole instead! Sometimes, the treasure was dumping the assholes you met along the way! This book is raw, dark and heartwarming all at the same time, and I absolutely loved it. I think Louise Nealon captured a girl on the cusp of the rest of her life so well, this absolute fine line between childhood and adulthood. A girl who absolutely does not know herself at all, does not know how to look after herself, and just needs to be kinder and more understanding to herself in all ways. This is very much a coming of age type novel, interspersed with some magical realism in a way thanks to Debbie and her mother's penchant for prophesising dreams, and Uncle Billy's reputation as a wise man. But is it really magical realism, or just a family with a bloodline that mean they are more sensitive to those around them, and the knowledge of the other plane of the world others have forgotten.

The illustrations are really fantastic here. The colors are vivid and attention grabbing, making this a book that toddlers and preschoolers are sure to enjoy. Furthermore, the book itself is a lighter board book that will be easy to young toddlers to turn on their own and is fun to simply flip through. When 18-year-old Debbie makes the transition from secondary school student to college student, she's overwhelmed by the adulting decisions she now faces in school, the pressure to socialise with other students and she lives a life treading between two worlds - that of a more metropolitan Dublin, and her home on the family dairy farm caring for her unstable mother, and talking Greek mythology with her beloved uncle Billy. Debbie is raised on her family's rural dairy farm. She lives with her mother, Maeve, a skittish woman who keeps her past and spends most of her days alone writing and dreaming. Maeve believes her dreams are prophecies. Rounding out their small house is Maeve's brother Billy, who lives in a caravan behind her house and fiercely love and protect Debbie. My bias against the first-person POV is mainly aesthetic. However, there are some practical reasons for my ire. The main one is that this choice of POV makes it even more difficult than it is already to keep from conflating ‘author’ and ‘protagonist’. Like, conceptually I know that MC Debbie and author Louise Nealon are two distinct entities and may indeed be radically different in every way. However, a bildungsroman-ish novel with clear autobiographical elements (Debbie’s arc is all about a country girl leaving home to study at Trinity; Nealon’s bio states that she’s from a farm in Kildare and studied English in Trinners) and a first-person POV? Let’s just say I’m not giving ‘Debbie’ much benefit of the doubt when she speaks like a tit in her early twenties. Stars | SNOWFLAKE BY LOUISE NEALON is the coming-of-age story you (probably) didn’t know you needed (or maybe you already knew). If you’ve been following my stories, you’d know how much i’d been taken by it - and it’s all for good reasons!

SO GROSS. There’s also two – TWO! – scenes describing Debbie raw-shaving her pubes. Why did I need to read this once, let alone twice?! She has the internet, she has a MACBOOK (despite her supposed poverty). GOOGLE. IT. Eighteen-year-old Debbie was raised on her family’s rural dairy farm, forty minutes and a world away from Dublin. She lives with her mother, Maeve, a skittish woman who takes to her bed for days on end, claims not to know who Debbie’s father is, and believes her dreams are prophecies. Rounding out their small family is Maeve’s brother Billy, who lives in a caravan behind their house, drinks too much, and likes to impersonate famous dead writers online. Though they may have their quirks, the Whites’ fierce love for one another is never in doubt. Everyone knows St Pats [sic: should be St Pat’s]. It’s the place where alcoholics and anorexics go to surrender.” Even I wasn’t this much of a dope. The ‘exceptionally smart’ Debbie also doesn’t realise she has to register for her course online and has to ask directions to Trinity. From Grafton Street. Um, okay.

However, Debbie is starting college soon. She has to step out of her dwelling place, commutes to classes and meets new people. In the first week, she was overwhelmed and disappointed by her fellow students and the anonymity of city life. This is a description of the local therapist in Debbie’s home town. There are so many problems in these two sentences alone. The ONE thing everyone loves? Everyone? And is that really Audrey’s problem? Or is it the problem of the people around her? In addition, this is presented as received wisdom from Debbie’s neighbours. Debbie does not question this in any way. Yet she’s apparently very smart? I guess in the ‘I am very intelligent’ meme sense only. This is really very mean. We are not given any context for her being so rude, especially when she states that she was the go-to person for ‘the shift’ all through school. She employed no entry requirements before, so this random dude who knows her by reputation can’t really be blamed for asking. Also ONE PARAGRAPH LATER: Final verdict: Bringing together all these lovely illustrations with educational elements make this a great read for any young child's library. LITTLE SNOWFLAKE is a great book to share with young learners/readers and teach them about the water cycle in the process.Hoci to má dlhý rozbeh, tak za polkou to ide šialene dolu kopcom. A koniec! Vločkin koniec bol také pohladenie na duši, kde cítite dobrý pocit z toho ako sa to celé vyvinulo. Proste také ukončenie som potrebovala. I tend to avoid some books when they're being hyped up in the media for fear they will not live up to that hype, this is one of those books I avoided at all costs for weeks. I then started to see comparisons being made to Sally Rooney's Normal People and decided hell no not for me. (Apologies Sally Rooney fans!) Fast forward to a Borrowbox update and this beauty popped up in the audiobook section, I thought what have I got to lose. Aside from the two main reasons I bought this book – supporting Irish authors and keeping up with the zeitgeist – I genuinely thought this might actually hit my buttons. I too was once a sheltered country girl going to the big city for college and feeling horribly lost from day one. However, right from the start I lost sympathy with Debbie.

If I haven’t earned the title of depression, then neither has she. Because she is a lot less miserable than I am. Or she certainly ought to be.”

Maria Had A Little Llama / María tenía una llamita

But really, [Alice] shouldn’t belong to anyone, least of all Lewis Carroll. She exists independently of him.’ Debbie has various encounters with the psychology and psychiatry services, which she describes thusly. Nealon’s writing is sparse and when that’s coupled with a melancholic tone and the Irish setting, the inevitable comparison to Sally Rooney will be made. While i feel like it’s in a league of its own and not all upcoming female Irish writers should be dubbed ‘the next Rooney’, i can see the overlap between the two authors.

First, thank you GR friend Peter for reviewing “Snowflake” by Louise Nealon and gushing over her honest representation of the country/farm folk in Kildare County in Ireland. According to Peter, who hails from that area, there is little literature reflecting the lives of the people in that area. One main reason I read is to learn about something I did not previously been acquainted. I wanted to give this novel a shot because I was very curious.Once you start saying yes, it’s very hard to say no. I’ve kissed so many boys that I don’t fancy just because I feel sorry for them.” The rest of the book is just a series of events in the lives of Debbie’s bipolar mother and depressed uncle. Debbie herself may or may not have mental health issues, but the topic is treated with such disdain and scorn that it’s hard to say where either Nealon comes down on it. It's disturbingly possible that she's on the side of the people who coined the snowflake [derogatory] version of the title. LITTLE SNOWFLAKE is a delightful story that explains the water cycle through the eyes of a small snowflake. Tiny drops of water freeze and turn into a snowflake, who travels down to the earth with the wind. It lands on a tree before heading to the ground, where children make it part of a snowball and then a snowman. When the sun comes out, they melt and become vapor that travels up to the sky, where they can again be made into snow. this is another contemporary, coming of age tale which follows debbie, an 18 year old who lives on a dairy farm as she navigates her 1st year at university, while also trying to handle her eccentric and troubled mother and uncle. if you know me you know i love a coming of age story, so this premise was right up my street. the writing was beautiful and lyrical but also raw, perfectly capturing the mindset of what it’s like to be a young woman figuring out life and trying to survive university (perfect for fans of sally rooney and naosie dolan in that regard). it also had a small magical realism element related to dreams which i definitely think added something unique to the story, even though i do wish it was developed a bit more. i also really enjoyed the irish slang in the dialogue and the exploration of some of the folklore, i found it all so interesting to read about! nealon also touches on several themes in this book too, like mental illness, family dynamics, friendship, identity, alcoholism, the pressure of university, and more.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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