What makes a family? That's what twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon wonders after she and her widowed father discover a wailing abandoned baby in the sno...
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Jul 21, 2007
Daniel
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I read this book to be a good book club member. The target audience appeared to be young adult women, so this book was not really my thing. That being said, it took only about four hours to read, which was a plus (and is why the book is worthy of two stars). Many of the characters seemed like caricatures, and many of their actions were not very believable. The narrator was supposedly 30 at the time the narration was occurring, but sounds like she is 12. Young adult women who like coming of age s
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May 19, 2009
رمان (نور بر برف) از جمله رمانهايي به حساب ميآيد كه به اهميت انسان و رعايت عواطف آن كه تمام هستي يك انسان را تشكيل ميدهد، پرداخته است. اينكه هر يك از ما داستاني، رازي، دردي ناگفتني داريم و اين راز، داستان يا درد تا پايان عمر با ما همراه است و سعي ميكنيم با آن به جدال درآييم و بر آن غلبه كنيم و در آخر به نقطهاي ميرسيم كه تسليم ميشويم و با آن و در كنار آن تا پايان عمر زندگي ميكنيم
طرح اين رمان، حكايت دختري دوازده ساله است كه همراه پدرش هنگام قدم زدن در فصل زمستان به نوزاد تازه به د More...
طرح اين رمان، حكايت دختري دوازده ساله است كه همراه پدرش هنگام قدم زدن در فصل زمستان به نوزاد تازه به د More...
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Feb 11, 2008
Amy
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Mar 06, 2009
Nancy
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Humph. Girl, 12, who has suffered tragic loss of mother and infant sister, finds abandoned baby in woods. She and her father find redemption.
That COULD have been a good book. Obvious, but good. In this case, alas, it is not. You get the impression that Shreve is shooting for depth and emotional resonance, but what she manages to hit is pretty limp characterizations and a rather silly plot. And as for emotional resonance? Missed that altogether. 30 year old protagonist Nicky, More...
That COULD have been a good book. Obvious, but good. In this case, alas, it is not. You get the impression that Shreve is shooting for depth and emotional resonance, but what she manages to hit is pretty limp characterizations and a rather silly plot. And as for emotional resonance? Missed that altogether. 30 year old protagonist Nicky, More...
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Nov 12, 2008
Melissa
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I found this book to be slow going at first, but it finally picked up in the middle just when I was wondering if the author had anything planned for the progression of the plot!While this novel made me think about what I would do if I lost part of my family and about what it might have felt like to deal with a pregnancy in college at nineteen, I never really was drawn into any of the characters or felt like they had much depth to them except for the loss that each of them feels for the people fo
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Sep 04, 2008
Jennifer
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If you enjoy a quick delve into the nature of grief, love, and family, but don't want to be overwhelmed with vicarious pain, then this is a good pick for you.
The story is told in the first person by a woman looking back after many years on herself as an adolescent, but she uses the present tense for the current events of the story, and the past tense for longer-ago flashback events. I thought this made it feel less like a memoir and gave it more urgency. The author underlines the emoti More...
The story is told in the first person by a woman looking back after many years on herself as an adolescent, but she uses the present tense for the current events of the story, and the past tense for longer-ago flashback events. I thought this made it feel less like a memoir and gave it more urgency. The author underlines the emoti More...
Aug 25, 2007
Joy
rated it:
I’ve never read Anita Shreve before, but I picked up this book at the Tokyo airport… it was a name I recognized and there were not a lot of English books to chose from. It turned out be a good choice. I enjoyed the book because the story and the characters seemed real. It was if this situation of finding a baby in the snow and plot that follows, could happen to anyone. I found that I was putting myself in the characters’ shoes asking what I would do in the same situation. I don’t want to si
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Dec 19, 2007
Angel
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This is a book about loss told through the eyes of a twelve year old. Although, I did find that the "voice" of the twelve year old was caught between speaking in the past and present tenses.
The losses range from the loss of a parent, sibling, child, innocence, trust and childhood. The story begins with a father and daughter walking in the snow and finding a baby freezing to death in a sleeping bag. This will begin the unfolding of the story behind the father and daughter More...
The losses range from the loss of a parent, sibling, child, innocence, trust and childhood. The story begins with a father and daughter walking in the snow and finding a baby freezing to death in a sleeping bag. This will begin the unfolding of the story behind the father and daughter More...
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Mar 01, 2008
Erin
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This book was a quick read, which I was in dire need of. The plot was interesting enough to keep my attention, although there were points where the author merely mentioned what would come of a certain seemingly insignificant event (i.e. When Nicky and her dad help shovel out the woman's car at the end of the novel and the author merely states: "In the spring, my father will stop at the cottage with the wash outside and find a kind of love there with a woman and her there sons that in year
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Jan 30, 2009
Diane
rated it:
I enjoyed this book. While I have been disappointed with the latest installments of Shreve's books, this one came through.
It's a character driven book, told by Nicky, the daughter of Robert Dillon. These are two people who have experienced much pain and tragedy in their lives. Nicky has lost her mother and her baby sister earlier in an accident. Her dad is all she has left. With the discovery in the woods of an abandoned baby, their lives unravel revealing layers that may never have More...
It's a character driven book, told by Nicky, the daughter of Robert Dillon. These are two people who have experienced much pain and tragedy in their lives. Nicky has lost her mother and her baby sister earlier in an accident. Her dad is all she has left. With the discovery in the woods of an abandoned baby, their lives unravel revealing layers that may never have More...
Jan 16, 2012
Kate
rated it: 
I recently attended a lecture titled, "In Defense of Excessive Detail" where the professor argued not so much for excessive detail as for precise detail. The modernist form of writing is fine, he said, but to really engage a reader and make them want to read the next sentence, an author must include relevant, precise details. They must engage a reader in the place and with the characters. So much, in writing and developing a plot, can be hinted at through details. Ms. Shreve should
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Oct 07, 2011
Rebecca
rated it:
Another Shreve book. I quite enjoyed this book a lot, for another quick read. The story was simple and engaging and only had a small cast of characters and the minor characters didn't add or take much away. If you didn't pay attention to them, you didn't miss much. Girl and Father live in the middle of nowhere Vermont, having moved there a few years ago after the death of Wife and baby Sister. Father did not take it well and they live a small life. Girl goes to school and is fairly normal consid
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May 23, 2011
Shawn
rated it:
I used to love to read this author, and then got soured by her last...well...six books. I found this one in a used book store and decided to give it a try. I was rather pleasantly surprised.
A father and his young daughter live in upstate New Hampshire---its the dead of winter, and they live in a remote location, so they take their snowshoes out and go on walks every evening. As they walk in the woods one night, they hear a strange noise. They think that it might be a wounde More...
A father and his young daughter live in upstate New Hampshire---its the dead of winter, and they live in a remote location, so they take their snowshoes out and go on walks every evening. As they walk in the woods one night, they hear a strange noise. They think that it might be a wounde More...
Jan 23, 2011
Alexandra
rated it: 
Anita Shreve versteht es in ihrem Buch einen mit den ersten Sätzen in ihre Geschichte hineinzuziehen. Die Erzählerin ist im Teenageralter, lebt allein mit ihrem Vater in einem abgeschiedenen, einsam gelegenen Haus und führt dadurch ein etwas bizzares Leben. Als die beiden auf ihrer täglichen Route durch den Schnee unterwegs sind, finden sie ein neugeborenes Kind in der Kälte liegen. Das ist der Beginn einer hoch emotional erzählten Geschichte, die das Leben der Mutter des Findelkindes mit dem de
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Oct 23, 2010
Amy
rated it:
Three word review: It was alright.
More words than that review: I just bought Fortune's Rocks from a charity shop and, half-surprising myself, really enjoyed it. So when I saw a couple more of Anita Shreve's in another charity shop for mere pennies, I decided to pick them up too. This was a slightly weird book for me to be reading now, really: it's set at Christmas in new England; right now it's a very sunny June in the real England. Metaphorically snow everywhere while I was laying More...
More words than that review: I just bought Fortune's Rocks from a charity shop and, half-surprising myself, really enjoyed it. So when I saw a couple more of Anita Shreve's in another charity shop for mere pennies, I decided to pick them up too. This was a slightly weird book for me to be reading now, really: it's set at Christmas in new England; right now it's a very sunny June in the real England. Metaphorically snow everywhere while I was laying More...
Jun 23, 2010
Jayne
rated it:
I felt the cold air, saw the falling snow, and tasted the sweet hot chocolate that Nicky loved to drink. That's how powerful the descriptions of events and sensations were. I was there when Nicky and her father found the bright-eyed newborn and with Nicky and Charlotte as they trudged back to the place where the baby had been abandoned. I was with Robert Dillon in the dreary police station as he was being interviewed by Warren...and with Nicky as she waited for her father. The descriptions of sc
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Jun 03, 2010
Karen
rated it:
Light on Snow is good, if a little, well...light
This is the second book I've read by Anita Shreve (the first being Eden Close) and I did enjoy both. I read this book in two sittings--it's easy and quick to read. The premise was very good and I thought the plot would be very interesting. It did hold my interest, as I wanted to see how the story finally resolved itself. But it ended up not to be as interesting as I anticipated. The bulk of the text was extremely redundant. Over and ove More...
This is the second book I've read by Anita Shreve (the first being Eden Close) and I did enjoy both. I read this book in two sittings--it's easy and quick to read. The premise was very good and I thought the plot would be very interesting. It did hold my interest, as I wanted to see how the story finally resolved itself. But it ended up not to be as interesting as I anticipated. The bulk of the text was extremely redundant. Over and ove More...
May 10, 2010
Kelly
rated it:
There are two aspects of this book. The first is sort of a mystery--Nicky (a 12-year-old girl) and her father are walking in the woods when they find a newborn baby girl in the snow. They take her to the hospital but nobody knows who the mother is and why she left the baby to die. The second part is about the other half of their family--Nicky's mom and baby sister, Clara, who died a few years before in a car accident. Nicky spends a lot of the novel remembering her mom and Clara. It sounds
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Apr 10, 2010
Maggie
rated it:
A quick, intense read that left no lingering after-taste in my mouth - like a half-decent table wine, it neither offended nor offered any sublimity to remember. The perspective of the 12-year-old narrator was raw and honest and sensitive and not always wholly likeable - much like a real pre-teen - but her resilience in the face of all the tragedy she'd seen was refreshing.
An excerpt:
'I watched my father run forward in his snowshoes the way one sometimes does in dreams, unable t More...
An excerpt:
'I watched my father run forward in his snowshoes the way one sometimes does in dreams, unable t More...
Apr 15, 2009
Jennifer
rated it:
This was really a lovely book. The premise is sad: a 12 year old girl and her father who have moved to an isolated house in New Hampshire after the mother and baby sister die in a car crash in New York are walking through the woods between their house and a small nearby motel and find (and save) a just-born baby that has been left in a sleeping bag to die on a winter night. But the story that follows is a beautiful, well-written compelling story of healing, hope, and forgiveness.
On More...
On More...
Jan 10, 2010
Karah
rated it:
I grabbed this book from the library right before we left to see my parents over Christmas. Honestly, it only caught my attention because of the title and the type of winter we're having right now (snow, snow, and more snow).
The book takes place in New England where a man and his daughter live on the outskirts of a rural town, nestled in the woods. They moved there after his wife and youngest daughter were killed in a car accident--mostly so he could hide out and retreat from the More...
The book takes place in New England where a man and his daughter live on the outskirts of a rural town, nestled in the woods. They moved there after his wife and youngest daughter were killed in a car accident--mostly so he could hide out and retreat from the More...
May 02, 2011
Stevecrandell
rated it:
This is a powerful, unsettling book, with dozens of traumatic flares. And yet there’s no excessive melodrama, or straight-to-video moments of shock. The setting is mid-winter rural New Hampshire. Shreve’s elegant spare language is perfect for the brittle emotion she conveys.
12-year-old Nicky and her father are haunted by the car accident that killed Nicky’s mom and her baby sister, two years previous. The tension ratchets up when they are dragged into a case of baby abandonment. Nic More...
12-year-old Nicky and her father are haunted by the car accident that killed Nicky’s mom and her baby sister, two years previous. The tension ratchets up when they are dragged into a case of baby abandonment. Nic More...
Dec 03, 2010
Rachel
rated it:
This book is about a young girl and her dad. They recently lost their mom/wife and sister/daughter in a car accident in new york. They move away to a small town. One day they are snow shoeing and they hear a wail, they think it's just a cat or some other animal. But it ends up being a baby. They grb the baby and go to the hospital to save it. They get questioned by dectives and akll that good stuff. Then a lady comes to their dorr asking to look at some furniture to buy but it ends upo being the
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Dec 01, 2008
Kelly
rated it:
This was a quick read, but a charming little story. Don't expect a blockbuster plot, don't expect something momentous. Just take it for what it is and you won't be disappointed. It's more of a snapshot of the life of a father and daughter who live in an isolated cabin during a snowstorm and the finding of a baby in the snow which adds some drama and excitement into their lives - something that it sounds like the daughter really needs.
Shreve did an EXCELLENT portrayal of a teenage More...
Shreve did an EXCELLENT portrayal of a teenage More...
Dec 29, 2008
Katie
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Nov 13, 2010
Tifnie
rated it:
Jodi Picoult she is not. OK - that's harsh. I'll reiterate, this story had potential to be better but lacked the character connection needed to be that "you have to read this book" book.
With that being said. Light on Snow is about a widow father, Robert, and his young daughter, Nicky, who live in a remote area in New Hampshire. Doing his best to keep he and his daughter socially removed, they stumble upon a harrowing scene in the woods, in the middle of winter. Now her More...
With that being said. Light on Snow is about a widow father, Robert, and his young daughter, Nicky, who live in a remote area in New Hampshire. Doing his best to keep he and his daughter socially removed, they stumble upon a harrowing scene in the woods, in the middle of winter. Now her More...
Aug 15, 2011
Andrea
rated it:
This was a quick read. The story takes place in New Hampshire in the winter. A father and daughter are snow showing in the woods in a remote part of their property and they find a new born girl in the snow. They hurry to rescue her and get her to the hospital in time to save her life.
There is an investigation, and it is discovered that the birth took place in a local motel - but there is no sign of the birth parents.
The daughter, Nicky, is the main story teller. She i More...
There is an investigation, and it is discovered that the birth took place in a local motel - but there is no sign of the birth parents.
The daughter, Nicky, is the main story teller. She i More...
Nov 18, 2011
Katerina
rated it:
Light on Snow by Anita Shreve, was nothing I expected it to be from the title. It was sad, and deep and every page made me pity the characters more and more. However, the strong and everlasting bond between the daughter and her father reaches out to you on a personal level and makes you feel like you relate to them. The story opens up with a father and daughter on their daily walk through the forest except this time they find a newborn baby rapped in a sleeping bag. The story unravels from there
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Sep 17, 2011
Liz
rated it:
I'm not sure if I've ever read anything else by Anita Shreve (blast this inadequate memory of mine!), but this book just didn't do a darn thing for me. I felt like I had wasted precious minutes of my life trying to get to the end of this. I suppose I kept reading because I was hoping that eventually the story would get better. Or the writing. Or anything, really. The author's writing style is not my cup of tea (almost Hemingway-like, but lacking emotion). She narrates a horrific story in s
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Jan 18, 2009
Jessica
rated it:
I'm not sure how to rate this... this was a quick, easy read. I thought Shreve did a good job with the narration, as the narrator is a 30 year old talking about her 12 year old self. You feel so bad for this girl, as she has been through so much, and her dad is dealing with his own grief over his wife and other child whom were killed years prior. The girl clearly wants a female figure in her life, and clings to the first female who walks in the door... who happens to be the mother of the baby ab
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