As Simple as Snow

I loved this book! You gain so much knowledge from it! It's definitely a read for all. You learn and learn and learn from ASAS. I wish it was a book required to be read in highschool. I first read it when I was fourteen. It's definitely a book I can re-read again and again. When I re read if for the first time I got so much more information than I got from the first time I read it. I can't re-read many books, I simply can't. But this. This is one I will be able to.

I purchased this book as a gift for another person. I have not read the text and so cannot evaluate it. However, the person who read the text said it was excellent.

Apart from the fact that all parents of teenage children should read this book, this is in my opinion, a seminal work. In the tradition of "Catcher..." and my personal favorite, "Love For Lydia", Mr. Galloway has managed to make the easily forgotten, troublesome times of late adolescence tangible to the point of discomfort. As a parent, I cannot but cringe at the familiarity. How easy it is to succumb to the all emcompassing burden of child rearing - so much in fact, that we tend to lose touch with the reality of its essence! This is a wonderful book! I could go on and on with lots of parentspeak and patronizing psyochabble but in the end it matters nought - Gregory Galloway hits the nail on the head. Hug your kids!!!!

As Simple as Snow- Eerie, unsettling, intriguing, compelling, creepy, infuriating... This is an amazing story on so many levels; I really enjoyed it. This is definitely a book to read if you are looking for something fresh, unusual, and quite unsettling.

this book changed my life. i felt so connected to both of the characters. their text was so natural. because of this book i've begun a new habit of underlining portions of text that really speak to me. sure, its a pretty common thing to do, but i had to put the book down after reading some of if to go find a pen and underline it so there would be no chance i would ever forget it. i've lent it to a few people so far and had them underline things they like. The book is slowly but surely being entirely underlined and filled with comments in the margins. i love it.

"As Simple as Snow" will be haunting me for a long, long time. Some say that all stories can be narrowed down to one of two plots. This story employs the "new person moves to town" plot - but it's far more complex than that. Anna, a high school student, is more than what she seems. She likes to write obituaries for people who are still alive - for every person in town, even though she's just moved there with her parents. She wears black clothes, black boots, dark makeup, offsetting her blond hair. She loves Lovecraft, making mix CDs, and discussing the codes Houdini and his wife shared. She can argue both sides of a debate with equal passion and knowledge, thus making it unclear which side she herself would support. She insists that people call her Anastasia. The narrator calls her Anna. He's a high school student as well. His name is unknown; it is unimportant. What is important is their relationship. He finds himself intrigued with Anna, despite her status as a "Goth," and the two begin dating. Her ideas challenge him; her intelligence impresses him; and, seven months later, her disappearance baffles him. Author Gregory Galloway has created a stunning and haunting tale. Just as Anna herself, this book is hard to categorize. Many would call "As Simple as Snow" a mystery, but just as many might refer to it as a coming-of-age story. The writing is engrossing, placing the reader on the same page (no pun intended) as the narrator, trying to figure out Anna herself as well the codes she used. Readers will be looking for clues in the grand design while falling for this strong, willful character and wondering why she left. It even has an appropriately creepy website, where you may download the mix CDs Anna created and watch a unique trailer for the book. If the trailer doesn't make you want to read the book immediately, I don't know what will. This isn't a run-of-the-mill mystery, nor a cautionary tale. It's a story about a boy, a girl, a town, a code. It's a story about that time in your life when you realize nothing is as simple as it seems. Once you realize that, you can't go back, no matter how hard you try. You can only go forward.