This topic is no longer of interest to me and I will not be finishing this book.

Sixteen-year-old Charity Jones is bullied for being bi-racial and a skeptic. When her mother brings home a teen runaway, and her worst enemy becomes brutally slain, her life doesn’t begin to change as much as a battle wages for her fight.
It is very easy to understand why Alexander’s YA novel is nominated for so many awards. She has the ability to carry both the YA market and an adult audience along on a supernatural fantasy. Her surprise ending comes as a mixed surprise, yet she’s satisficed readers and set herself up nicely to write a sequel. --Le Coeur de l'Artiste

I don’t know how to start this because once again I don’t know what I really feel about this book.
I will try to talk about the book itself and I will write along what I felt about it.

The main character of this story is Charity Jones, a young girl who is bullied in school by others because she is different. By others, I mean all the usual bullies, cheerleaders, and the jock types. She is an intelligent girl with a natural talent for science and engineering. Her life is treating her really bad, but everything starts to change when her family takes in as a foster child, a runaway, named Aidan. Soon, they will fall in love. And this is something that quite annoyed me. How Charity would say that she won’t be able to live without Aidan, or how she can’t breathe if he isn’t around. I know that this is supposed to be a love between two teenagers, but I personally think that is too much.

Anyway, the perfect Christmas time is destroyed by the discovery of a body of Charity’s worst bully behind the bleachers, savaged and torn apart. The authorities will suspect it as an animal attack, but Charity is sure that the true is another. She, with her friend’s help, will start a mission of finding the murderer.

The story or the overall idea is good, but I felt and I still feel that something is missing. The book is really easy to read, the characters are well described, but what annoyed me again was the fact that all the adults seemed to be busy with all the Christmas preparation or with planning their holiday, and none seemed to care about all the troubles around them. And the ‘fantastic group’, as I want to name Charity and her friends, is the only one who is capable of doing something right or finding the murderer. I didn’t enjoy this so much. I mean, I get that she is special and skilled but finding the murderer is an adult job, not theirs. Even her name I think that is too much.

Overall, is a quite good book, and I recommend it. Is another type of Christmas story, and I am sure that others will enjoy it more that I did.

Snowed is a rather different kind of holiday read.. If you prefer teen-angst and monsters to just another feel-good Christmas story, this is probably what you are looking for.

It wasn’t really my cup of tea, but since it’s a short story I was able to finish it quite easily. Even though the real crazy, horror stuff is saved for the second half, it was the first part that I found hard to believe. The main character is supposed to be an incredibly smart girl, but she comes across so young and naïve – and how could she not see there was something fishy going on?! It also annoyed me to no end that she is so gullible and judgemental of others, which are two things that she likes to accuse everyone else of (over and over). It was mainly the lead character that brought the story down for me. The other characters are far more likeable and the story is also perfectly creepy. Since it’s pretty short, I would say to give it a chance if you are intrigued by the synopsis!