Snowflake: A Novel
By: Louise Nealon / Narrated By: Louisa Harland
Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
Paaaaaaaainful Listen, so how the HECK did this wind up being a goshdanged FAVE, for cripes sake?!?
Okay okay okay!
I full well admit that I ALWAYS read the Publisher’s Summaries to m’ weekly audiobook choices; how else is one s’posed to make decisions? -BUT- I’m sooo aware that they can be sooo misleading, thereby making me sooo peeved-all as heck.
Oh, man! was the Summary misleading as, jeez, I dunno! on this, Snowflake, by Louise Nealon, or what?!
First, yeh yeh yeh: You get twitchy and wanna faint at “foul” language? at sexually active young adults? Oh, YEH will you wanna stay away from this one! And good cow, if you, as I, want to weep or throw your listening device at the wall Every. Single. Time our heroine, Debbie, barrels into a bathroom stall to sob into her fists, well, just take care you don’t. Tears make the eyes puffy, and dude! you neeeeed that listening device for other things. But ooooh, how I did moan and kvetch to m’ husband about how MUCH I just wanted to get it all over and done with.
According to the Summary, 18-year old Debbie is from a HUGEly dysfunctional family. -However- at no time is their fierce love for each other in question. Not as Debbie leaves the dairy farm she grew up on to go to Dublin’s Trinity College. Not as she navigates her Coming of Age.
Oh noooo, dear friend. For, like, 6 1/2 hours of this book that love is soooo in question. There’s SUCH disgust for each other, SUCH a dread and mistrust of others, SUCH disdain for people in Life. And even (Which, you know me, Lover of the Least of God’s Creatures that I am) contempt for other animals, leaving them to die, etc etc et freaking cetera.
And basically? As this is GORgeously written, and as there’s pretty much nary a plot to be found? This is, like, Literary Fiction. For Teens no less. Which translates into: Stunning writing blah, where the heck is the story blah, and Teens? Fraught with ANGST to boot blah blah…
So why did this turn up as a Fave to me?
-Because- oh my good golly gosh! the way things slooooowly started to weave their way at the end. SUCH beauty. And, as I kept remembering the godAWFul Queenie throughout most of this, it did what THAT monstrous piece o’ … well… did NOT. Here: Our heroine struggles with mental illness as well, is inCREDibly destructive—to herself and to those around her -BUT- here? Author Nealon actually addresses it in the story as things start drawing to the end, rather than Ta-DAH-ing with a quickie It’s All Roses Ending.
Because a character is introduced early on, a woman who disgracefully addressed her drinking (In IRELAND!) and labeled it as Alcoholic, and who sought treatment. Oh the shaaaame! But Nealon fleshes her out, and throws her into the development of the story, and brings her into the lives of Debbie and her Off-Her-Rocker Mum and her Filled-With-Self-Loathing and Hard-Drinking uncle Billy. Debbie’s best friend (Whom Debbie treated soooo poorly) is fleshed out as well, and she’s woven into the healing.
Aaaaallll comes together for the most beeeeautiful finish that I never saw coming. And which made me weep as it was just so freaking touching. It was genius story crafting, just lovely. Where once I’d seen only the ugliness of the characters, their actions now made sense; their courage in moving forward, their willingness to open up, let others in, their dadgummed HONESTY about who they were, how they were scared, how they felt shame? All brought together for a truly glorious final scene. THERE was the fierce love that the Publisher’s Summary touted. Finally!
Yeh, I had problems plugging away at this for many hours, but at no point was it narrator Louisa Harland’s fault. She has a lovely lilt, and the best little edge to her voice that perfectly conveyed the rare times our characters were pointedly feeling something (Cuz, see, usually they were drinking their emotions into oblivion). Speaking of drinking, Harland amps up the edge when Debbie in particular is drunk, being swayed by a self-loathing that lashes out, or turns inward to destroy herself. Grand job; loooooathed the beginning part, but always thought the performance was topnotch.
Had to white-knuckle m’ way through a lot of this, even as I was thinking: Older teens would looooove this book! Fraught with angst, a veritable pig-wallow in negative emotions. But the sensitivity shown in the latter part of the crafting, and better: The way for a teen to deal with mental illness, to live with it? Totally profound. So Brava, Nealon! Brava!
Remember how I mentioned throwing the listening device at the wall (Don’t wanna do THAT!), and how ya also don’t wanna weep cuz crying makes your eyes puffy?
Soooo true. Blessed m’ little iPhone; took a look in the mirror and saw? Puffy eyes… ICK! But it was a nice thing, hearing something so beautiful.
Snowflake is worth the cucumber slices to the eyes…!
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