Have you ever read a novel and thought to yourself, “Oh, God, why didn’t I read this in high school?” The Fallen Snow by John J Kelley is one of those books that you know would have impacted you with such intense, life-long significance if read as a teenager that you yearn to share it with anyone in your life, if not the high school students in your acquaintance. This is how I share The Fallen Snow with you; I urge you to cease whatever novel you are currently reading and start The Fallen Snow immediately. You won’t regret it.The Fallen Snow by John J Kelley follows WWI veteran sniper Joshua Hunter as he returns to the mountains of Virginia with an honorary citation, a crippled leg, and a horrible case of shell shock. Although he is commended by family and friends for his service to the country and is able to reunite with his high school sweetheart like the war (and his lack of correspondence) never happened, he struggles to find peace with his actions during the war, from the Germans he killed to the men he saw die around him to the romance he found in France.
The novel may seem to start slow as it switches between Joshua’s return to his hometown to his first assignment in France, but the secrets that haunt him are hidden in plain sight. After one-third of the novel is finished, you will gasp with surprise, skip back a few pages to confirm suspicions, sigh with despair for the fate of the characters you hold dear, and speed through the next two hundred pages to discover their fates. The Fallen Snow is neither a war novel nor a coming-of-age novel nor a romance novel—it is simply a novel worth reading.
Are you keeping up with the best 300 word book reviews on the Internet? Never miss a novel by following on Google Plus or through an e-mail subscription or your favorite RSS Reader!