Review of White As Snow by Salla Simukka

White As Snow

Book 2 in the Snow White Trilogy

By Salla Simukka
Translated by Owen Witesman

Star Rating: 

Date/Time Started: 6/15/2015 11:43 pm
Date/Time Finished: 6/16/2015 8:39 am

Genre: Young Adult
Number of Pages: 224

Synopsis:(From Amazon)
The heat of the summer sun bakes the streets of Prague, but Lumikki's heart is frozen solid.

Looking to escape the notoriety caused by the part she played in taking down Polar Bear's crime ring, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson escapes to Prague, where she hopes to find a few weeks of peace among the hordes of tourists.  But not long after arriving, she's cornered by a skittish and strange young woman who claims to be her long-lost sister.  The woman, Lenka, is obviously terrified, and even though Lumikki doesnt believe her story--although parts of it ring true--she can't just walk away.

Lumikki quickly gets caught up in Lenka's sad and mysterious world, uncovering pieces of a mystery that take her from the belly of a poisonous cult to the highest echelons of corporate power.  On the run for her life again, Lumikki must use all her wits to survive, but in the end, she may just discover she can't do it all alone.



Review:
I was planning to buy this book as soon as it came out after reading the first book in this trilogy, Red as Blood, and I was not disappointed by either book.  Given the link of fairy tales between Red as Blood and the title, White as Snow, I had expected to get a lot of connections with fairy tales but this time, White As Snow was used interchangeably to connect Lumikki to Lenka who claims to be her sister, but also to introduce a new story line, new characters, and another way to look at life.

While Red As Blood was originally suggested to be the young adult equivalent of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo I do have to agree, yet argue that it seems even better.  This book is gripping in a "I never want to put this down" type of way, and while I loved the Millennium Trilogy, it's not at all the same.  This book is also less graphic/violent than the Millennium Trilogy, which makes it much more pleasant to read.

This is an absolute MUST read, though I will warn that it did seem to go very fast, and be a lot shorter than I would have liked.



Author Information: (From Amazon)
Winner of the 2013 Topelius prize, Salla Simukka is an author of young adult fiction and a screenwriter.  She has written several novels and one collection of short stories for young readers, and has translated adult fiction, children's books, and plays.  She writes book reviews for several Finnish newspapers and she also writes for TV.  Simukka lives in Tampere, Finland.


To learn more about Simukka and her books, visit her website.

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