I enjoyed this book. I was easily submersed in it and ended up finishing it fairly quickly. It touches on some tough topics of mental health, substance abuse etc but was done carefully.

It’s not my usual cup of tea but I did really connect with the main character (of which the book is a 1st person narrative), which is what I think kept me interested in it.

I’m left a little disappointed in the ending and how it was or wasn’t wrapped up but then again I’m not really sure what I expected.

A carefully paced coming of age story about Debbie, a young woman who grew up on a dairy farm in rural Ireland and her first year at Trinity. While she gets to grips with mixing and making friends with her privileged classmates, things at home go from bad to worse and then worse still. All this while Debbie is struggling to find out who she is, tussling with her own mental health and drinking problems.
It's a gentle story - even if some of the events are quite dramatic - and is a lot about being on the cusp of adulthood.
I really like the surrounding cast and found myself wanting to know more about them, even though they were not the focus of the story.

An wonderful delicate debut. Filled with heart.
Loved the variety of characters here, with a great focus on mental health and identity.
Stayed with me for a long time.

There was so much hype surrounding this book. I am pleased that I read this book as it was a good read. However, it didn't grip me.
There is some great imagery throughout the novel and the author has certainly done their research with this book. For me, this book did not live up to the hype

I thought this story packed a real emotional punch and didn't shy away from difficult or uncomfortable topics. I found the treatment of mental illness was handled really well in an interesting but not exploitative way. The loneliness, longing and insecurity screams from the pages. I think this is a really original, heartfelt and bruising novel.

This book is a beautiful coming of age story. Set in Ireland we meet Debbie White, a young woman on her journey into adulthood, which until recently has been relatively sheltered due to her growing up on a rural dairy farm. She is starting college in the city, and life as she knows it is about to change.
Debbie has a close relationship to her Uncle Billy, the father figure in her life, who lives in a caravan on their land and works the dairy farm. A strained relationship with her mother, who is thought to have mental issues, and believes that her dreams precede future events. Debbie is starting to have these dreams too and must determine whether she is too alike to her mother, and if she has lost her own sense of reality and being.
We follow as Debbie has a rough transition into college life and in making friends, and how she balances her rural upbringing, alternative family, and feelings of being so lost in a world she doesn't quite fit into.

A fantastic book and definitely worth a read.

A really enjoyable coming of age story, Snowflake by Louise Nealon is about Debbie White, and how she navigates life away from her home. When Debbie gets a place at Trinity College, Dublin, it’s decided that she’ll commute every day by train from her farm in the country. This sets her apart from the beginning: most people seem to stay in Dublin. But Debbie struggles with how to behave around other students, and if not for Xanthe, who takes Debbie under her wing, I don’t think she would have made any friends at all.

Debbie’s home life is unconventional. Her mother is obsessed with dreams, and believes that she knows what people’s dreams are - that she can see right into them. She has periods of extreme moods, and Debbie has to look after her during these episodes.

And then there’s Debbie’s Uncle Billy. He runs the farm and lives in a caravan. I rather liked his no-nonsense approach to life, but he’s just as vulnerable as his sister and niece.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though. Debbie is funny, quirky and a highly likeable person - the book had moments that really made me laugh. It was these moments of light and dark that really made the book work for me. Louise Nealon is going to be a name to watch for in the future. I loved this. You should all go and read this now!

Many thanks to Manila Press for the copy provided to me through NetGalley.

Snowflake is a coming of age story about Debbie White, a young girl who has spent her life in a small village and everything that life entails. She begins to find herself when she gets a chance to study in Dublin. However the transition from country girl to city life isn't easy when the ties to home are so strong.

I really enjoyed Snowflake. Louise Nealon's voice is fresh and shows what it is like to be young in rural Ireland today. Whilst her protagonist Debbie can sometimes be unlikable she is always easy to feel sympathy for. What is a lovely surprise is that at the end of the story is that you are feeling hopeful for Debbie. This is not something I have seen in modern literature recently.

Snowflake by Louise Nealon is available now.

For more information regarding Louise Nealon (@Louise_Nealon) please visit her Twitter page.

For more information regarding Bonnier Books (@bonnierbooks_uk) please visit www.bonnierbooks.co.uk.

An emotionally honest and darkly humorous coming-of-age tale, 'Snowflake' is the story of eighteen-year-old country girl Debbie. As the novel opens, Debbie is off to study at Trinity College in Dublin, having lived her whole life thus far on a dairy farm with her mother, Maeve, and her uncle, Billy. Caught between the sophisticated bustle of university life - and an increasingly dependent friendship with new friend Xanthe - and the bubble of family life back home, 'Snowflake' charts Debbie's first year at university as she navigates mental illness, family history, friendship, boys, essays, and more.

I really wanted to like this novel more than I did. Louise Nealon writes very well and really picks out the little intricacies of both family and university life. Her portrayal of the so-called 'snowflake' generation is filled with moments of heartbreak, heartache, and laughter, and she captures her characters exceptionally well.

Unfortunately the book didn't really stick with me - when I put it down, I didn't feel a compulsion to pick it back up again and, for me, Debbie and her family never quite made that leap from being characters on a page to really coming alive in my head. I suspect this may be more down to me as a reader than the novel, however. I've read a lot of contemporary 'coming of age' novels recently - in the wake of 'Normal People', there seems to have been a small flood - so I suspect reading fatigue may account for me enjoying this less than I ordinarily would have.

Beautifully written, heartwarming, tender, funny and insightful story of a bright girl starting university after growing up on a dairy farm in a small rural Irish community. With astute observations on life, love, family, mental health and feeling like an outsider.

Debbie loves to lie on the roof of her uncle's caravan, stargazing and telling stories. Her mother spends most of her time sleeping or writing about her dreams. Debbie also has special dreams but tries to ignore them because she doesn't want to be labelled as crazy too.

After getting excellent marks in her exams, Debbie earns a coveted place at Trinity College, Dublin. But she struggles to make friends in the unfamiliar environment and keeps to herself, believing that she doesn't fit in. Eventually she lets her guard down enough and realises that even the people who seem the most confident also feel unsure of themselves.

Debbie Whites life is changing massively. After growing up on a dairy farm with her mother Maeve and Uncle Billy in rural Ireland she's now attending Trinity College in Dublin. There she meets people with experiences and opinions alien to her but exciting and bewildering. It seems a million miles away from her mother who spends her days recording dreams that she believes to be prophecies and her uncle who whilst clever has drunk away any potential he had. But as she pulls away from them she begins to realise she and her new friends could be far more like them than she could possibly realised.

A tender story that reflects the so called snowflake in us all. Beautifully written, it has that quintessentially Irish way of telling a story that I felt a little lacking in Sally Rooneys books that this has been compared to. This is better, and I do like Rooney....this is just better. Hope to read more from Louise Nealon soon.

A warm, funny book, but one that contains as much pain as humour. It reminded me of Milkman by Anna Burns, but I found this to be much more accessible and the characters more real. This story deals with how one can grow up accepting life as ‘normal’, when it is anything but, yet the naivety of Debbie is part of its charm. It also gives an insight into the fallout of mental illness.

This novel is all about growing up, university, mental health, Ireland. The storytelling is excellent and the main character Debbie is funny, quirky and very likeable. Also her uncle Billy, her mum Maeve and her best friend Xanthe are original and great characters. It highlights the ways in which we form connections and how we can strengthen relationships between each other, Debbie's love for her family and friends is central to her identity, and it's only through connection with others that she comes to respect herself. A very impressive debut!

I absolutely loved this beautifully written, clever novel. Heartbreaking and delicate, it shows how we find our family in unexpected places and sometimes safety is not in the expected places.

This book deserves to win awards, I can't praise the writing enough.

Snowflake tells the story of Debbie, who lives with her mum Maeve on a dairy farm. Maeve doesn’t often leave the house, and spends her days writing down her dreams; and the dreams of others that she believes she experiences.

Debbie’s uncle Billy lives in a caravan at the bottom of the garden, and it’s here where she spends more of her evenings, lying on the roof of the caravan and sharing stories with Billy about the stars.

Now Debbie has been accepted into Trinity College in Dublin, and her small world is opening up to sophisticated friends and new experiences. But her mum’s eccentricities seem to be deepening, and Billy’s drinking is getting worse. How does she juggle the two worlds she finds herself straddling?

This isn’t normally a book I’d pick up to read, but I found it okay. It did take me a little while to get into it, but I enjoyed the writing style and this kept me engaged enough to finish. However, I didn’t find it amazing and it’s not a book I’d recommend to others. I don’t think it has a wide appeal.

Debbie is a hugely frustrating character, and at times, it’s hard to understand her actions and reactions, but she’s also so vulnerable and lost that you do want to look after her. However, I don’t think she’s likeable. She’s very self-obsessed and quite crude at times. It’s like she’s purposely trying to shock the audience but I don’t know why.

I also think Nealon couldn’t decide what she wanted for her. Debbie was smart enough to get into Trinity, but we were to believe she couldn’t remember the price of a train ticket she bought that morning? Not even a rough price? I just think it didn’t add up. This in itself was annoying because that’s when I start to disbelieve in characters.

I think some people might struggle with it because it doesn’t have a dynamic plot, the story is tightly wound around the characters lives and day to day events and living. If you want something with high action, this isn’t the book, however the writing is good and I think that’s what made me carry on.

It was uncomfortable reading, but I think purposely so; Debbie is challenged in her life and as readers, we were faced to read these challenges as well. I can’t say it was a book I was desperate to pick up and read though, and I think at times it was quite draining because the book does tackle some heavier topics such as mental health, death and attempted suicide; and I can’t say it was always done successfully.

There’s definitely an audience out there for this book, and I imagine it would make an excellent book club choice read because there’s so many topics to discuss and explore. However, it just lacked something for me.

Eighteen-year-old Debbie White lives on a dairy farm with her mother, Maeve, and her uncle, Billy. Billy sleeps out in a caravan in the garden and relies heavily on alcohol to get through the day. Maeve spends her days recording her dreams, which she believes to be prophecies.

This world is Debbie's normal, but she’s about to step into life as a student at Trinity College in Dublin where everything will begin to change. While Maeve's eccentricity tilts into something darker and Billy's drinking gets worse, Debbie struggles to cope and is forced to face the most difficult parts of herself.

With a strong focus on mental health ‘Snowflake’ is a bold, modern, honest, and touching novel about growing up and becoming who you are meant to be. Saying that, and without deterring anyone from reading it, it wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea.

Ending aside (which I felt lacked a proper conclusion), there were a few elements to the story that I just didn’t get on with. A large section of the novel revolves around/explores the idea of dreams (what they mean, their impact) and it all felt a bit out of place...dissonant. Maybe I just missed the point? I’m sure I’m in the minority here - I think this is will be big hit this year.

Glorious. Much has been written about Snowflake and the comparisons with Sally Rooney are understandable. It'd reductive though. Nealon is a force in her own right!

This book was an absolute joy to read. Fabulous writing and a story that totally gripped me and had me hooked from the start.

It is hard to explain how good Snowflake is. It becomes the voice in your head, the place your thoughts run to, the itch beneath your skin. It's really something.

It's about:
Mental health and illness, trauma, confusion
Entering adulthood, moving away, growing up
Turning points, changes, finding yourself. Or how not to
Relationships of all kinds, family, friends, truth
Contemporary Ireland, an authentic Irish vernacular, magic but in a very real way
Body image, self-hatred, -acceptance, -compassion
Learning to ask for help and showing how important doing that is
So much more.

The characters are likeable but also infuriating; they are flawed, relatable, just trying to get through, like we do. So very human. Haunted. Hopeful.

I wasn't ready for it to end. It felt too sudden, too soon, like my copy was missing the last page. That's the best way to leave a reader, though, right? Wanting that little bit more.

This book steadily drew me in and the supernatural aspect of it wasn’t overdone - it is just there, underpinning Debbie’s life and experiences and anchoring her to her family.