From The Review Pile: After The Snow

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After The Snow by S. D. Crockett

I've had After The Snow on my review pile for a while now and I still haven't got around to it because, well, I've heard some negative views that make me wonder if I'm going to enjoy it. The concept is great but there's quite a few others things that concern me, such as the voice, how it's told in dialect (but apparently not as well as The Knife of Never Letting Go) and the dog skull that the boy talks to a lot. Overall it seems to get 2 or 3 stars which isn't awful but also isn't great.

From Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Willo was out hunting when the trucks came and took his family away. Left alone in the snow, Willo becomes determined to find and rescue his family, and he knows just who to talk with to learn where they are. He plans to head across the mountains and make Farmer Geraint tell him where his family has gone. 

But on the way across the mountain, he finds Mary, a refugee from the city, whose father is lost and who is starving to death. The smart thing to do would be to leave her alone -- he doesn't have enough supplies for two or the time to take care of a girl -- but Willo just can't do it. However, with the world trapped in an ice age, the odds of them surviving on their own are not good. And even if he does manage to keep Mary safe, what about finding his family?

Coveted Cover: After The Snow

After The Snow by S. D. Crockett

I love both covers for this book, but I have the one on the left. The story itself sounds interesting from the blurb but I've read a lot of reviews have problems regarding the use of slang/dialect, some people found it hard to believe Willo's age because of it, apparently it loses momentum for a long time in the middle and some weird stuff happens in the story, like there are cannibals, meaning that some people found the plot too hard to believe, with some also disliking the post-apocalyptic/dystopian turn that it takes.

So it'll be interesting to see what I think!

From Goodreads:

Fifteen-year-old Willo was out hunting when the trucks came and took his family away. Left alone in the snow, Willo becomes determined to find and rescue his family, and he knows just who to talk with to learn where they are. He plans to head across the mountains and make Farmer Geraint tell him where his family has gone. 

But on the way across the mountain, he finds Mary, a refugee from the city, whose father is lost and who is starving to death. The smart thing to do would be to leave her alone -- he doesn't have enough supplies for two or the time to take care of a girl -- but Willo just can't do it. However, with the world trapped in an ice age, the odds of them surviving on their own are not good. And even if he does manage to keep Mary safe, what about finding his family?