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katiegreally 's review for:
Snowflake
by Louise Nealon
*CW-Spoilers*
Many female Irish authors who have come on to the Irish literary scene in the past few years have run the risk of being compared to the esteemed Normal People author Sally Rooney, and Louise Nealon is no exception. However, Snowflake portrays a very different experience and atmosphere than that of Sally Rooney to the life of a young woman starting university, giving its readers a darker, sharper, wittier, and brutally non-idealised perception of what this kind of transition is like.
Snowflake centres itself around Debbie, a young woman from rural Kildare who has been raised by her eccentric, unstable mother Maeve and her pragmatic uncle Billy who has a liking for whiskey and Greek mythology. Up until now, her life has revolved around working on a dairy farm, coping with her mother’s erratic behaviour, and kissing boys she doesn’t like. This all transforms and intensifies when she receives an offer to study English at Trinity College Dublin, and she struggles to come to terms with the changes that occur in her life almost overnight. Throughout the novel, Nealon keeps the tone light and humorous, even when addressing serious topics such as mental health issues, consent, tragedy, and alcoholism.
The title Snowflake is an interesting one, as it refers to the incredibly unique crystallised ice structure with perfect symmetry and also to the derogatory term used against a certain type of person of a younger generation who disagree with or be offended by traditionalist values or old-fashioned perspectives. This is particularly interesting when looked at in relation to the tension between tradition and modernity in Debbie’s life as up until she starts university she has lived quite a traditionalist life in relation to rural Ireland, where diets mainly consist of meat and potatoes, everyone knows all the intimate parts of their neighbours lives and mental health problems are brushed away with either a stiff upper lip or alcohol use. Those suffering from mental illness may also be regarded as having some sort of mythical gift. When Debbie moves away from this type of lifestyle and engages in the diversified world of Dublin City with its vastness and veganism, she sees that things don’t necessarily always fit into the categories that she was brought up believing they did, and starts to question the things she has known in her life up until now. She certainly becomes more affected by this tension, trying to ignore the chaos of the real world as it doesn’t fit with the way she has dealt with things in the past. Both Debbie and her new college friend, Xanthe, compare their lives and backgrounds to one another, each idealising the others, thinking that the others is more perfect. Debbie representing a more traditionalist background, rurality and the working class, and Xanthe representing a more modernist lifestyle with her vegan diet, trendy wardrobe and inner city apartment financed by the wealth of her parents, neither girls seem to understand that both backgrounds have their own set of problems and both are equally as complex. I think what Nealon does with this title, and how it reflects Debbie’s attitude to the problems she faces is quite clever and really encapsulates the overall point of the novel in that not everything that appears to be perfect actually is, and neither are people’s human reactions to chaos, and nor do we have to accept that just because things are the way they are, doesn’t mean that that’s the way they have to be.
One thing that I particularly loved about this novel is how little Nealon romanticised the beginning of the college experience. Debbie is entirely unprepared for what awaits her in university, in terms of finances, learning materials and social skills. On her first day on campus, she is so entirely alien to navigating Dublin city by herself that she receives a train fine, has to ask a guard for directions to the university and neglects to complete registration before showing up. Her descriptions of these events are so well written that the reader can feel the anxiety and embarrassment that Debbie is experiencing jump off the pages. I also found it to be a very accurate, non-glamourised depiction of the transition from secondary school to university, where students are expected to become entirely independent the second they receive their university offer, and how jarring and isolating of an experience it can be. I thought that Nealon perfectly encapsulated this transformational experience when she described how Debbie believed that walking through doorways caused ‘a brief lapse in memory’ as a child, and how she related that to the moment she entered the front gate of Trinity College; ‘This doorway felt like it had the power to do something similar. It doesn’t matter who I am. Once I walk through that door I will be changed. I’m not prepared for this. It feels like I should have a funeral for myself.’ (15) Nealon continues to make extremely astute observations such as this in relation to pivotal moments in Debbie’s life throughout the novel, constructing Debbie’s inner world in such a way that is extraordinarily vivid and relatable to the reader.
I also found Nealon’s representation of mental health struggles throughout the novel to be extremely well written, and addressed very astutely and considerately. Nealon depicts Debbie’s social anxiety in a very subtle but coherent way, in that although she spends the majority of her free time on campus hiding in bathroom stalls to avoid social situations, she doesn’t have the emotional vocabulary at this stage of her life to describe or recognise the type of mental illness she’s coping with, even when it is described to her by the university counsellor. I also found her treatment of mental health struggles in other characters such as Maeve, Xanthe, and Billy as very striking, as each faced their own very specific challenges, which were all depicted in a very perceptive way with each pursuing their own form of treatment, showing an insightful diversity in relation to the topic.
I also loved how Nealon dipped into an ethereal world of dreams, mythology, prophecies, and storytelling throughout the novel. Nealon does this without making the novel feel overly whimsical, always keeping one foot very much so in a harsh reality. Not only does it celebrate some of the most distinctive aspects of Irish culture and literature, but it also added to the overall construction of the novel, slotting in perfectly with Nealon’s descriptions of perceived intelligence, pivotal moments and again, mental health. She used this construct wonderfully as a thread which went through before the novel even began, from the roots of Debbie’s own family history all the way through to the naming of characters such as Xanthe, in order to tie everything up very neatly at the end, which was an impressive feat in itself.
Overall, I found Louise Nealon’s Snowflake to be humorous and refreshing, and nothing like I’d expected. I would highly recommend it to those who enjoyed Sally Rooney, but who are looking for something with a little bit more of a punch and less of a filter.
Many female Irish authors who have come on to the Irish literary scene in the past few years have run the risk of being compared to the esteemed Normal People author Sally Rooney, and Louise Nealon is no exception. However, Snowflake portrays a very different experience and atmosphere than that of Sally Rooney to the life of a young woman starting university, giving its readers a darker, sharper, wittier, and brutally non-idealised perception of what this kind of transition is like.
Snowflake centres itself around Debbie, a young woman from rural Kildare who has been raised by her eccentric, unstable mother Maeve and her pragmatic uncle Billy who has a liking for whiskey and Greek mythology. Up until now, her life has revolved around working on a dairy farm, coping with her mother’s erratic behaviour, and kissing boys she doesn’t like. This all transforms and intensifies when she receives an offer to study English at Trinity College Dublin, and she struggles to come to terms with the changes that occur in her life almost overnight. Throughout the novel, Nealon keeps the tone light and humorous, even when addressing serious topics such as mental health issues, consent, tragedy, and alcoholism.
The title Snowflake is an interesting one, as it refers to the incredibly unique crystallised ice structure with perfect symmetry and also to the derogatory term used against a certain type of person of a younger generation who disagree with or be offended by traditionalist values or old-fashioned perspectives. This is particularly interesting when looked at in relation to the tension between tradition and modernity in Debbie’s life as up until she starts university she has lived quite a traditionalist life in relation to rural Ireland, where diets mainly consist of meat and potatoes, everyone knows all the intimate parts of their neighbours lives and mental health problems are brushed away with either a stiff upper lip or alcohol use. Those suffering from mental illness may also be regarded as having some sort of mythical gift. When Debbie moves away from this type of lifestyle and engages in the diversified world of Dublin City with its vastness and veganism, she sees that things don’t necessarily always fit into the categories that she was brought up believing they did, and starts to question the things she has known in her life up until now. She certainly becomes more affected by this tension, trying to ignore the chaos of the real world as it doesn’t fit with the way she has dealt with things in the past. Both Debbie and her new college friend, Xanthe, compare their lives and backgrounds to one another, each idealising the others, thinking that the others is more perfect. Debbie representing a more traditionalist background, rurality and the working class, and Xanthe representing a more modernist lifestyle with her vegan diet, trendy wardrobe and inner city apartment financed by the wealth of her parents, neither girls seem to understand that both backgrounds have their own set of problems and both are equally as complex. I think what Nealon does with this title, and how it reflects Debbie’s attitude to the problems she faces is quite clever and really encapsulates the overall point of the novel in that not everything that appears to be perfect actually is, and neither are people’s human reactions to chaos, and nor do we have to accept that just because things are the way they are, doesn’t mean that that’s the way they have to be.
One thing that I particularly loved about this novel is how little Nealon romanticised the beginning of the college experience. Debbie is entirely unprepared for what awaits her in university, in terms of finances, learning materials and social skills. On her first day on campus, she is so entirely alien to navigating Dublin city by herself that she receives a train fine, has to ask a guard for directions to the university and neglects to complete registration before showing up. Her descriptions of these events are so well written that the reader can feel the anxiety and embarrassment that Debbie is experiencing jump off the pages. I also found it to be a very accurate, non-glamourised depiction of the transition from secondary school to university, where students are expected to become entirely independent the second they receive their university offer, and how jarring and isolating of an experience it can be. I thought that Nealon perfectly encapsulated this transformational experience when she described how Debbie believed that walking through doorways caused ‘a brief lapse in memory’ as a child, and how she related that to the moment she entered the front gate of Trinity College; ‘This doorway felt like it had the power to do something similar. It doesn’t matter who I am. Once I walk through that door I will be changed. I’m not prepared for this. It feels like I should have a funeral for myself.’ (15) Nealon continues to make extremely astute observations such as this in relation to pivotal moments in Debbie’s life throughout the novel, constructing Debbie’s inner world in such a way that is extraordinarily vivid and relatable to the reader.
I also found Nealon’s representation of mental health struggles throughout the novel to be extremely well written, and addressed very astutely and considerately. Nealon depicts Debbie’s social anxiety in a very subtle but coherent way, in that although she spends the majority of her free time on campus hiding in bathroom stalls to avoid social situations, she doesn’t have the emotional vocabulary at this stage of her life to describe or recognise the type of mental illness she’s coping with, even when it is described to her by the university counsellor. I also found her treatment of mental health struggles in other characters such as Maeve, Xanthe, and Billy as very striking, as each faced their own very specific challenges, which were all depicted in a very perceptive way with each pursuing their own form of treatment, showing an insightful diversity in relation to the topic.
I also loved how Nealon dipped into an ethereal world of dreams, mythology, prophecies, and storytelling throughout the novel. Nealon does this without making the novel feel overly whimsical, always keeping one foot very much so in a harsh reality. Not only does it celebrate some of the most distinctive aspects of Irish culture and literature, but it also added to the overall construction of the novel, slotting in perfectly with Nealon’s descriptions of perceived intelligence, pivotal moments and again, mental health. She used this construct wonderfully as a thread which went through before the novel even began, from the roots of Debbie’s own family history all the way through to the naming of characters such as Xanthe, in order to tie everything up very neatly at the end, which was an impressive feat in itself.
Overall, I found Louise Nealon’s Snowflake to be humorous and refreshing, and nothing like I’d expected. I would highly recommend it to those who enjoyed Sally Rooney, but who are looking for something with a little bit more of a punch and less of a filter.