6.5/10, well now that I look back at this novel it was very underwhelming and confusing as well because I felt like I was reading two completely different stories only hanging together by a thread. The first half was the main character, Willo who apparently likes to put a dog skull on his head but who does that, just lives alone in the mountains when he finds a girl called Mary and did I mention that Willo speaks in slang and not proper English, it really irritated me every time I had to read his lines of dialogue. Willo and Mary go into a forest and then a truck spotted them and captured them and took them away into some fortress city, well I thought this was only a post apocalyptic novel and then it turned into a dystopian novel, how confusing is that.

The second half of the novel was mildly interesting but I wondered why the world ended due to a new ice age, it must have been global cooling or something along the lines of that. This part of the story just rambled along with no sense of where it was even going other than Willo got stuck in prison which he then escapes, and met some characters and one of them died and it just ended like that, it's just a complete snoozefest from start to finish and I recommend that you do not read this book and instead read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or the Legend series by Marie Lu for a much better dystopian or post apocalyptic book. ( )

After the Snow by S. D. Crockett is a coming-of-age Dystopian story set in the far future. The story is located in an England that is experiencing a renewed Ice Age. It also appears that people have forgotten many skills from modern day. There are references to past oil shortages, wind farms and solar power, but this very cold world has no heat source other than fire. People huddle together afraid of the dark and cold. What government there is appears to be of a totalitarian type with everyone needing “papers” in order to live in the cities, or if they live outside the law and fend for themselves they are in danger of being rounded up and being forced into slavery.

Fifteen year old Willo and his family live in the hills. He wears a hand-stitched coat of skins and a dog skull as a hat. In fact he relies on communication with the dog skull to help him in his hunting and trapping. He returns home one day to find that his family have been taken away by the government and he decides to follow and save them. While travelling he encounters a young girl and after dangerous encounters with both wild dogs and cannibals they head into the city.

Unfortunately I found After the Snow a rather disjointed and confusing story. The conflict between those that live in an official settlement and those who live on their own didn’t make sense. There appears to be violence and starvation no matter where people lived. I also didn’t enjoy that the author chose to have Willo relate this post-apocalyptic story in a coarse, broken, ungrammatical style. Overall this dark story frustrated me and I was glad to see the end of it. ( )

teen fiction; post-apocalypse/survival starring raised-in-the-woods boy. Story is a bit lacking and there isn't that pull to keep reading, but the narrative style is decent. Kind of interesting to read the bits about sewing/tailoring when making the fur coats (slashing the sleeves and what not). Ending is left open for poss. sequels but I don't think it quite did well enough. Use of the f* word when they get to the city. ( )

When I was in elementary school we read Weekly Reader. Does anyone else remember the one with the cover that talked about the “coming ice-age?” After the Snow is about that future time. Take that, global warmers!

The voice in After the Snow reminds me of the abandoned children in Mad Max’s Beyond Thunderdome. The dialect seemed reminiscent of a combination of Irish, Australian and Scottish. Readers who enjoyed [b:The Knife of Never Letting Go|2118745|The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1)|Patrick Ness|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1277071696s/2118745.jpg|2124180] might like to add this to their lists. The main character was hard to get to know--I couldn’t tell how old Willow was, and it took me quite a while to discover he was a boy! He came across as a bit mad--he wears a wild dog skull on his head, and “hears” the voice of the dog in his mind. After his family disappears, he is on his own to decide what to do, and the feral part of him seems to be intent on taking over. This is coming in my Junior Library Guild shipment, but one third of the way into the book, I don’t really care about Willow and Mary, a young girl he “rescues,” or if they survive this strange cold land. Did not finish. ( )

While reading this book I didn't love it but now that I've finished I realize, I love it.
What makes it tough to get into this book is the unique voice that Crockett gives to Willo, her main character but this is what also makes the story so engaging. Willo's interior mental world is just as strange and alien as the outside world where, maybe climate change, maybe something else has caused a constant winter in the UK. Willo has learned to hunt, forge and live in the wild, isolated with his family and few others who also chose this lifestyle.
It would be easy to call this dystopian or post-apocalyptic but I feel the world Crockett creates is more realistic and less fantasy which is a welcome change. It reminded me of Children of Men which I loved.
pg 96. "And kneeling there with out cold hands together brings a feeling that wash over me like a warm wind. I forgot I been hungry and tired and alone with this pesky girl. I reckon that feeling gonna stay written on my heart forever, I really do."
pg.255 "But I do call. I call out to the mountain. And the fear got so strong I lose myself. Just like a dead cold stone lying there alone. And when I wake up, I still been alive and the mountain sighing and whispering to me. I'm only a mountain. I'm only a lump of rock. It's your thoughts you've been scared of. ( )