Book Review: Snap: A Novel

What Parents Should Know
Parents should know that this is a story about a child dealing with the impending death of her best friend's grandmother who has raised her. Her death doesn't happen in the book, but its inevitability hangs over it.

There's lots to discuss here, and this would be a good choice for discussion groups. The author leaves much unstated, and fills the book with layers of metaphor and understated emotion.

Common Sense Media Review
For all the grimness of the subject, this is a lovely, quiet story, simply told, and it's most notable for all the things it isn't -- no villains, no suspense, no tearjerking (though quite a bit of poignancy), no dumb, clueless adults. No dramatic histrionics, no flowery poetry, no details of illnesses, no hospital, no deathbed scene, in fact no death. This isn't Willie's story, though she is the catalyst. It's the story of two friends trying to come to terms with grief and waiting for the inevitable changes that come to every life.

And, for all its short length and simple language, it's a story of complexity: nothing in life is as simple as we might like it to be, and every character, major and secondary, is three-dimensional. Eddie's mom chooses always to tell Eddie the truth, as hard as that sometimes can be, but she really pays attention when she tells it. Sally's absent mother doesn't talk -- mostly. Each character is, in her own way, unresolved, as is the story, which ends before the end. This is all just a not-so-simple way of saying this isn't just a story -- it's real.

From the Book:
"Mom, is Willie all right?"

Red flag. I could see it immediately. My mother's back stiffened. I waited for her to set the jar on the counter. I knew that she would answer me. She always does. She's never lied to me.

She turned and faced me. Her fingers were still gripped over the top of the eight-penny nail baby food jar. She looked right at me.

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