book review: the snow child by eowyn ivey

This was a book I'd heard a lot about, I'd seen it for ages, on trains and in bookstores and charity shops. It seemed like my kind of thing, magical realism set in the Alaskan wilderness, with unreliable narrators and foxes... I saw it for £2 in a charity shop and thought I couldn't really go wrong. 

I wanted to write this review when the book was still fresh in my mind, however I didn't, and I think it says a lot about the book that I can barely remember anything about it. It was a very quick read, I think I read it in a couple of evenings, it captured my attention enough to finish it, which isn't always a given in my case.

I think though, I am not the kind of person this book is aimed at, and I'm highly surprised it's been rated so highly on Good Reads. The story focuses on an older couple, Mabel and Jack, who move to the Alaskan wilderness after Mabel cannot cope with the death of their child. The beginning of the book interested me, the emphasis on the loneliness of the wild they have moved to, but I really didn't invest anything in the characters, and after Faina appears several times and they begin to interact with her, my interested dropped off rapidly. The story from there on out was predictable, and I found myself skipping over the lack of plot, because I was bored.

It's sad, because I felt like the story had a lot of potential, but it really just fell flat, and I remember very little about it, except for a lot of descriptions of snow. Have you read this and did you enjoy it? Let me know, because I felt like I was missing something, as so many people seemed to enjoy it!