Snow Island

Beautifully written by Katherine Towler, this is really a parallel story of the life of Alice Daggett and George Tibbits.  We follow Alice as she grows up on Snow Island, a remote community of the New England coast.  It is a solitary place in winter, a busy vacation location in the summer.   Alice is 16 years old, as the reader watches her learning about the good and bad things that can happen in life.   She has lost her father when the story opens and she is helping run a small store on the island to support her mother, brother and herself.  She and her friends are discovering love and relationships as become teenagers.  Then World War II breaks out and America is pulled into the fighting.  As people come and go on the island, Alice matures and finds out about life.  In a parallel story, George Tibbits grew up on the island and left to fight in the first World War.  He has also learned a hard lesson about love and loss and he comes back to the island every year in a effort to make peace with his past.  As their lives intersect, two very awkward souls may be there to help each other.

The descriptions in this story are wonderful.  The reader can picture the scenery of the island and feel the solitude of the place.  The feeling of sadness and isolation of living on such a desolate place are palpable.

This is a coming of age novel where we watch Alice grow into a woman as she experiences love and loss and the reality of life in times of war.  Alice takes on the responsibility of the family store when her mother is not capable of handling it.  She discovers her first love and grows up when the effects of war come to the island.  The words paint a picture that is easy to visualize and we are in the end still thinking about Alice and George long after we have closed the book.