Thank you Titan Books for a gifted review copy! 

 

Two weeks ago, Christine Sinclaire’s husband met his untimely end after falling off the roof in a lights-stringing accident. Wracked by grief and unable to connect to her teenaged son, Christine packs up her family and heads to the remote Pennsylvania Wilds to celebrate Christmas in solitude. But after arriving in the cabin in the woods, grief and terror become intertwined as Christine finds herself haunted by horrors real and imaginary. 

 

This was a quick, creepy read that had all the trappings of horror I like—unexplained occurrences, physical manifestations of emotions, teenage angst, spooky solitude and major scary atmosphere. Unfortunately, something about COLD SNAP rang hollow for me in the end. 

 

If you like THE BABADOOK, this book is in a very similar vein. It’s jarring on purpose to exemplify how Christine’s grief is affecting her. She hallucinates, blacks out and becomes extremely disoriented—unfortunately, that means we, as readers, do too. At times, this made the story very difficult to follow. There’s a line between disorienting to make a point and making the narrative impossible to understand, and this book moves over into the latter a little too much. 

 

The ending was probably my biggest gripe about this novel. Where I thought the story would conclude with a grander message and resolution, instead, it veers off into “What the hell just happened?” territory … in a bad way. I really don’t know what to make of it, honestly. 

 

If bite-sized horror is your jam, you might appreciate this. However, if you want a story with … any answers at all, don’t go looking for them here.