Is it cold in here or just Snowy?
Snow definitely had the most interesting and surprising monsters in any book that we’ve read this semester. We’ve read about werewolves, vampires, and zombies and I thought that was really all that monsters entailed. I was very wrong. Everyday innocuous things can become monsters too. In Snow the monsters were inside the snow. I never even imagined that this book would have monsters that inhabit snow or use it to their advantage and hide within the snow.
If I had one criticism concerning the monsters is that the creatures were a little hard to discern. I think that is okay for the most part, but a little more description of them would have been pretty good. I wasn’t overall sure if they were a nano-type creature or a creature that could take the shape of anything. It was really interesting that the creatures could wear humans like a suit and this could have been played for some pretty good suspense.
There were a few times when Malfi dropped the ball on the use of the suspense. First, one of the main characters injured her leg, she fights and fights to claw her way up the stairs and then she is eaten, or it is assumed she is. There was a sort of fade to black and then screams in the darkness. I expected her to return, but she never did. She could have been a good foil for the other characters; the monsters could have used her to attack the people in the town. This could have been a stronger tie in where it seemed that the characters could communicate through some telepathic or otherwise inhuman way.
Second, there was a little girl that was running around with the survivors and at one point, she was thought to be a snow monster of some sort. The main characters just left her. She returned a little later, but they weren’t fooled, they knew she was a monster. They left her because she was a monster, so why not kill her and move on?
One thing I learned from reading this is that there is always a chance to create a new monster, the writer just has to use their imagination and try to think of something new. I enjoyed the monsters immensely, but thought they could have been a little more solid as it seemed to me that they could be thwarted by a strong breeze.
I thought it was interesting that the two main characters didn’t get into a relationship at the end. The main woman was always complaining about her fiancé and the leading hero seemed to be letting down his ex-wife at every turn. I think the author may have lost a little interest in the characters because at the end, they go their separate ways and seem like they won’t even keep in touch. It was strange, but a good turn on the cliché where characters get together at the end of a terrible situation.
My one major complaint with this novel was that in the beginning of the book, there was some pretty strong language that seemed out of place. I know that people curse in everyday speech, but the book seemed to be heavy with cursing for just the first few pages and then it seemed to taper off. I would imagine that once things got harder that the characters would use more harsh language, but getting snowed in during a flight must have been worse than almost dying in a deserted town by being devoured by a snow monster. Anyway, it isn’t that big of a deal, but it did bother me.
On another note: Why is it that there is always that one annoying character that hates everyone, trusts no one and is a danger to the group? The woman that fulfilled this role should have been used for bait. I know that all the characters deserved to live in one way or another, but seriously, why was this cliché there? It was obvious upon reading her first section of dialogue that she would cause problems later on, and I wasn’t surprised when she almost got everyone killed.
If I had one criticism concerning the monsters is that the creatures were a little hard to discern. I think that is okay for the most part, but a little more description of them would have been pretty good. I wasn’t overall sure if they were a nano-type creature or a creature that could take the shape of anything. It was really interesting that the creatures could wear humans like a suit and this could have been played for some pretty good suspense.
There were a few times when Malfi dropped the ball on the use of the suspense. First, one of the main characters injured her leg, she fights and fights to claw her way up the stairs and then she is eaten, or it is assumed she is. There was a sort of fade to black and then screams in the darkness. I expected her to return, but she never did. She could have been a good foil for the other characters; the monsters could have used her to attack the people in the town. This could have been a stronger tie in where it seemed that the characters could communicate through some telepathic or otherwise inhuman way.
Second, there was a little girl that was running around with the survivors and at one point, she was thought to be a snow monster of some sort. The main characters just left her. She returned a little later, but they weren’t fooled, they knew she was a monster. They left her because she was a monster, so why not kill her and move on?
One thing I learned from reading this is that there is always a chance to create a new monster, the writer just has to use their imagination and try to think of something new. I enjoyed the monsters immensely, but thought they could have been a little more solid as it seemed to me that they could be thwarted by a strong breeze.
I thought it was interesting that the two main characters didn’t get into a relationship at the end. The main woman was always complaining about her fiancé and the leading hero seemed to be letting down his ex-wife at every turn. I think the author may have lost a little interest in the characters because at the end, they go their separate ways and seem like they won’t even keep in touch. It was strange, but a good turn on the cliché where characters get together at the end of a terrible situation.
My one major complaint with this novel was that in the beginning of the book, there was some pretty strong language that seemed out of place. I know that people curse in everyday speech, but the book seemed to be heavy with cursing for just the first few pages and then it seemed to taper off. I would imagine that once things got harder that the characters would use more harsh language, but getting snowed in during a flight must have been worse than almost dying in a deserted town by being devoured by a snow monster. Anyway, it isn’t that big of a deal, but it did bother me.
On another note: Why is it that there is always that one annoying character that hates everyone, trusts no one and is a danger to the group? The woman that fulfilled this role should have been used for bait. I know that all the characters deserved to live in one way or another, but seriously, why was this cliché there? It was obvious upon reading her first section of dialogue that she would cause problems later on, and I wasn’t surprised when she almost got everyone killed.