Review: A Million Little Snowflakes by Logan Byrne

Release date: September 14th 2013
Self-Published
Purchase: Amazon

Synopsis via Goodreads:

Oliver Hurst has always been abnormally normal.

His grades are horrible, his best friend just left for Utah, and he's depressed. His overly religious parents don’t help, especially since they control every facet of his life. One stupid sentence said in desperation gets Oliver tossed in an adolescent psych ward, where his depression and fears become even more of a reality.

When Oliver meets snide, tough girl Lacey Waters he doesn't think his life could get any better, that is, until she becomes the ray of sunshine he has desperately needed on his cloudiest of days.

*Received a ecopy from netgalley

What truly pulled in my attention from start, with humorous remarks and realistic issues, turned somewhat flat as the story progressed. I think I stopped believing the second Oliver blurted out he wanted to kill himself and was immediately whisked off to the hospital by his father. It just seemed too abrupt, and it made me stop and consider that if this was real life, would my parents simply tell me to get up and let's go to the madhouse, or would they actually try to have a conversation with me about whatever I was going through? It was like this for me the more I read the story. Sure Oliver's mother was quite a piece of work and his father was too reserved with her and should speak out more, but I would've liked for them, or even him, to ask Oliver why he wanted to kill himself.

Now on to the hospital. The dynamics of this place was a little hard to convince me, especially when the characters were introduced. Lacey sounded like a tough girl with trust issues at first, but then suddenly she comes in contact with Oliver and starts telling him everything. Wouldn't she be mindful of the fact that this is a complete stranger, regardless if she's attracted to him? Hmm...my feelings about her and even the main character are still rather mixed. Neither rubbed me the right way.

Oliver lost me when his father admitted him. I know he's not entirely depressed or shares some of the extreme psychological issues as the others inside the hospital, but how is he so open to revealing everything about himself the second a doctor asks him to in group sessions or during one on one? And then some of the things he'd say were just too immature for his age, and often times those narration threw me off. Sure he's funny, but not always. Some things were uncalled for.

I'm in no way saying A Million Little Snowflakes was bad. It was an okay read with a few things (as mentioned above) that bugged me. Aside from those things lies a realistic story with great potential had I felt more connected to the characters and possibly if the period had been longer. I do like that the main character found his voice to speak up and express his feelings to his mother, the dictator, and I also like that in such an awkward situation he found love for the first time. Sadly, his rash judgment at the end resulted in quite a disaster for himself. I do like that the story is based on real events and that does make up a bit for the issues I've mentioned before that threw me off. Still, I feel it could haven been much better.