Wow, it’s been a while since I read anything. I participated in NaNoWriMo and finished (yay me!), but my brain felt like it was melting so I took some time off from reading and writing and indulged in the plethora of movies I had queued up and ready to go.
Just as I started to feel like my brain was ready to absorb the written word again, the library informed me of some books on hold. I picked them up just before my city went into another lockdown phase, so, good timing all around. Normally I’d go through the categories I set up for myself and write up a blurb for each one. Not this time. Oh nay nay. I’m just too overwhelmed with life stuff to adhere to such strict guidelines. Instead, I’m simply going to babble like I know what I’m talking about. You know, trade in ‘perfect’ for ‘done’. More of a blurb review than an itty bitty one.
Side note: how the hell am I going to run an author’s website if I can’t even review books on a regular basis? That’s a topic for another day. For now, let’s jump in…
This book is labelled ‘science fiction’, which is probably the reason I wanted to read it. But there wasn’t much scifi to be found. If I squint really hard I can see the apocalyptic future as the reason for the genre, but that’s it.
The premise is that winter never left. There’s no indication of Those In Authority discussing the problem or attempting to find a solution. I would’ve thought the reader would be informed of why winter never left, what did humans do? Or was it an external force? We never find out, which turns out to be okay. The story isn’t about how it got cold, but how Wilodyne (Wil) manages in this new environment.
Wil lives in the Appalachian mountains and grows cannabis in a farmhouse. Her mom latched onto a grower who taught Wil everything, and it turns out Wil is exceptional at the task. She has no idea what caused the cold and seems out of the loop in regards to information. In the day and age of cellphones this had to be explained away. The author did so by saying there wasn’t much service on the farmland so Wil remained unaware of how bad things were getting. Her mom and stepdad leave for California before the book begins, Wil elected to stay behind and tend the cannabis crop.
The cold is like a second, but main, character of the book. It’s ever-present and a constant, gentle reminder throughout the novel. I could feel the cold leeching through the pages and settling into my bones as I read the words. My fingers ached as if I’d been outside shovelling or scraping my car. Excellent work by the author, keeping the theme of cold consistent and never allowing the reader to glance away from it.
The story is about how Wil decides, rather abruptly, to leave the farm and seek out her mom and stepdad in California. She hitches her tiny mobile home to the back of a truck and sets off. By this point she’s already got one tagalong, Grayson, who helps her out a bit. They pick up a couple more people and encounter a few camps, all while the reader learns that Wil might be gay and believes that men frequently pose a threat of some kind.
Overall I enjoyed the book, but it ends open and that bugged me a bit. Wil is headed for California and ends up in a greenhouse – one that’s functioning – somewhere not too far from where she started. It appears to be a nice oasis, finally: a warm and functioning greenhouse, but we don’t get to meet the people running it because the damn book ends. I suppose it can be inferred that Wil flourishes here, as she’s a grower, and will make a suitable home in the snow.
Well, that’s it. Not a bad book, not a great one either. The cold feeling will stay with me for a while, but that might be because of the snow outside my window.
Should Be Writing 