Snow: 02/06/25

Snow by Meera Trehan (2025) is a middle grade post apocalyptic book that blends science fiction and fantasy tropes to create a captivating horror story. The princess is cursed to spend her days shoveling the Snow in a world stuck in perpetual winter. Things change when a snow shoe appears through the Mist.

Ela has found the world she has come to believe is only a story. She's found the Snow Princess and she's starting to remember more of her life before her hydrologist parents became obsessed with snow. Can she help the princess and find her way home?

There are two villains: the Snow, an unnatural seven sided crystalline structure, and another, even darker force. The truth is locked up in the stories Ela knows and in the Snow Princess's happier memories.

This is a book that works through finding a balance between two unreliable narrators. From an adults reader's point of view, a lot of that unreliability hinges on the special languages families develop and adopt as their children grow. Then those words take on new meanings and can hide the truth in plain view.

Snow also sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The princess deciding to leave is a privileged traveler. Her route is uhoria: first trying to get back to her better life in the past, and then the future when she decides to seek the unknown as her current situation is untenable. Her route is the maze as represented by the dangers posed by the Snow, the Hounds, and the twisting paths she takes.

Five stars

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