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Christina has survived her first semester away from home, overcoming more than just homesickness. She has survived the Evil.
Until now.
Now winter has arrived, with screaming winds and blinding snow. The cruel Shevvingtons, with whom Christina and the other children board, have already destroyed beautiful Anya, reducing her to a helpless creature, an empty shell. They have selected their next victim. Christina's dearest friend. Sweet, trusting Dolly. Working with the Shevvingtons is someone sinister who lurks in the basement, laughing insanely.
Is there any chance that Christina can revive the old Anya and also save Dolly?
But first, Christina must save herself. . . .

201 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

31 people are currently reading
590 people want to read

About the author

Caroline B. Cooney

129 books1,766 followers
Caroline Cooney knew in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer when "the best teacher I ever had in my life" made writing her main focus. "He used to rip off covers from The New Yorker and pass them around and make us write a short story on whichever cover we got. I started writing then and never stopped!"
When her children were young, Caroline started writing books for young people -- with remarkable results. She began to sell stories to Seventeen magazine and soon after began writing books. Suspense novels are her favorites to read and write. "In a suspense novel, you can count on action."
To keep her stories realistic, Caroline visits many schools outside of her area, learning more about teenagers all the time. She often organizes what she calls a "plotting game," in which students work together to create plots for stories. Caroline lives in Westbrook, Connecticut and when she's not writing she volunteers at a hospital, plays piano for the school musicals and daydreams!
- Scholastic.com

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5 stars
349 (27%)
4 stars
410 (32%)
3 stars
378 (30%)
2 stars
106 (8%)
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15 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
Profile Image for Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*.
2,962 reviews1,196 followers
March 3, 2023
4.5

The writing style is older than the story. I apparently loved Caroline B. Cooney's poetic writing technique but it's been so long I forgot that. I didn't realize that I should have read The Fog first, ack. Review to come.
Profile Image for Stay Fetters.
2,508 reviews201 followers
April 18, 2025
"Sometimes I think it's wrong to spend so much time choosing books, Dolly confided, showing Christina the titles of her weekend choices. It's probably like a drug. I'll get so addicted to the library shelves I'll cling, sobbing, to the library door when they try to close for the night."

I immediately dug my bookshelves apart looking and praying that I had this book. Maybe hidden behind stacks of other books that I’ve picked up along the way. Praise someone because I found it and screeched like Anya.

Wow! I absolutely devoured this book and holy shit! This was damn good. Didn’t know that this series could be any more twisted and then this waved at me from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. What a wild ride and I cannot wait to complete this series.
Profile Image for Chelley Toy.
201 reviews69 followers
May 27, 2025
I read this with my book club that I run on Instagram where we revisit Point Horror and other books from our childhood - @talespointhorrorbookclub

Tagline - Outside, She Would Freeze. Inside She Would Die! 

Memorable For - Christina taking action and the giggler!

Some Thoughts

“The Snow is part two of a trilogy of books published under the Point brand in the U.S. renamed in later years as the Losing Christina trilogy - The Fog, The Snow and The Fire

In The Snow winter has come, and Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington have nearly succeeded in fully destroying Anya and now the Shevvingtons have set their sights on Christina and her friend, sweet, trusting Dolly. While Christina tries to protect Dolly and bring Anya out of her desperate isolation, the Shevvingtons work to destroy Christina’s reputation - to make her schoolmates, and even her parents, think she is crazy.  There’s a giggle coming from the basement, unused guest rooms that seem to echo the personalities of The Shevvingtons previous victims, a mysterious briefcase, oh and Christina now fancies Blake (Anya’s love interest from The Fog who got shipped off to boarding school). But Christina is granite and will not be defeated! 

Other highlights include all the gothic vibes from the first book, a dangerous slumber party, a terrifying ski trip, Dolly and her love of reading, a creepy giggle in the cellar and a mysterious figure! Oh and did I mention Mr and Mrs Shevvington …still gaslighters! They even got to me by the end of the book 😱 *hangs head in shame*

For a second book in a series I flew through this one and the danger felt so much more!

Caroline B Cooney is an amazing writer!
Profile Image for Pastel Paperback.
246 reviews63 followers
January 10, 2025
Another banger from Caroline B. Cooney. Wasn't quite as fantastic as the first book in the trilogy, The Fog, but it still packed a lot of atmospheric thrills, written only as Cooney can.

I loved all the winter imagery in this. It's a perfect book for January: so many descriptive blizzards, ice skating, snow mazes, and skiing scenes.

Also, a truly wtf ending. Loved it.

Can't wait to finish the series.
Profile Image for Erin.
3,063 reviews375 followers
January 6, 2017
These just seem a little crazy to me - so many things happening and so few adults care. I'll finish the series, though.
Profile Image for Sharron Joy Reads.
746 reviews36 followers
May 25, 2025
The Shevvingtons are back with their sick psychological games and gaslighting that only Christina can see and resist, everyone else is so enamoured by them.

After the events of Fog when poor Anya lost her mind and her boyfriend was sent away it is now deepest winter and this feels cold and chilling. Their new victim is Christina’s best friend from the island, Dolly who gets lost in the snow. There’s also the giggling in the basement, what is going on?

Not as good as the first part in my opinion but still a great fun thriller pitting one 13yr old girl against 2 evil adults, in fact all the adults in this are pretty dire to be honest. Although you feel solidly on the side of Christina, there is doubt that she may be wrong, that it’s all in her head but we’ll have to wait for the final part to find out!
Profile Image for Courtney Gruenholz.
Author 13 books24 followers
November 5, 2023
Spoilers for the first book naturally so...

Christina Romney is only thirteen years old and she believes she has triumphed over the Shevvingtons, her spirit as strong as the granite on her home of Burning Fog Isle.

They made Anya Rothrock, seventeen and beautiful, lose her mind and her own spirit but Christina kept her friend from taking her life out on the rocky cliffs. The other kids at school have been giving Christina less of a tough time for now and she has Jonah Bergeron with a huge crush on her and he may be growing on her too...

Until the day she comes home and finds that there is another person boarding at the Schooner Inne in Anya's room, her old bed occupied by suitcases. It isn't a guest staying at the Inne for the winter but Michael and Benjamin Jaye's little sister, Dolly.

Using his sticky charm, Mr. Shevvington as a principal has bent the rules to have eleven year old Dolly go to the sixth grade on the mainland school instead of Burning Fog Isle. He and his wife claim that her intelligent mind is going to waste there and she should be going to a more fitting school...perhaps to rub off on emotionally unstable Christina with someone closer to her own age.

Christina knows she can stand up to the Shevvingtons so they need someone else of a weaker will and more trusting nature to manipulate...in order to break the spirit and suck out her soul.

Just like they did to Anya, to Valerie, the sister of Robbie from her English class...and who knows how many others before that. No one but Jonah and Robbie believe Christina and any other allies have been sent off by the Shevvingtons.

Anya's beau Blake Lathem: sent away to boarding school.

Miss Schuyler, the math teacher, now works at another school. Her "meddling" led to Mr. Shevvington firing her.

Christina's parents don't believe her nor any of the other kids at school. Dolly on arrival doesn't believe Christina's story about the Shevvingtons either and bonds with the couple as if they were her own parents. Anya still lives at the Inne even though she has dropped out of school and now works in a laundromat, her own parents convinced by the Shevvingtons that it would be good for her.

Mrs. Shevvington still gives Christina a hard time in English and seems to use her "assignments" for her whole class as a way to find out more ways to try and break Christina down...other ways to have people sympathize the "poor island girl" and praise the adults for trying to help her through other parents and teachers.

At home, it is even worse than before. Christina can hear noises down in the cellar and it seems to be the sound of giggling. A sound that is chilling because it is a deep voice filled with insane glee but no one else hears it or even believes there is such a sound...it's all in Christina's troubled brain.

The cold, Maine winter has snow and ice upon the ground and it makes parts of the land dangerous...especially for a little girl like Dolly. Afraid of heights, not fully graceful at her young age...always wanting to be the center of attention. This means everything she tells the Shevvingtons gives them more fuel to destroy Christina and bring about her own downfall.

A little girl who would love to be in bed so she can read all the time and be waited on hand and foot sick from this dreadful cold?

So many ways that could be arranged and Christina now has to save Dolly and herself and try and get Anya back all on her own...

We get a glimpse at other adults besides the Shevvingtons in this book and most of them are so gulled by the awful couple that they seem just as awful. It's very hard to hate Christina's own parents because you can tell how much she loves them but if they never questioned things she did in the first twelve years of her life...why now?

Wouldn't other adults on the Isle have said something beforehand if Christina were troubled or even question why all of a sudden a bright girl like Anya would just fizzle out like she did?

The one adult I end up liking they way I did Miss Schuyler in the first book is Jonah's own mother.

The kids from school are always over at Jonah's house to play in the snow and she gives them hot chocolate...a cozy, loving mom. She does something so special for Christina but I won't spoil it yet it is enough to show you that Jonah must have only judged Christina because that is what most people on the mainland just believe.

It does also paint maybe an unfortunate idea of his father being the one to put those stereotypical ideas in his son's head or perhaps his grandfather on either side?

Still it could just be that love can enough to change your mind along with your heart...

We get to a very eventful third act where there are some twists and reveals that lead us up to an ending that again has shades of happiness but we know that the story is far from being over.

It's the calm after the snowstorm just before everything is about to go down in a blaze but will it be one of glory...or tragedy?
Profile Image for Ann.
1,043 reviews2 followers
May 11, 2023
Another lesson in psychological warfare and gaslighting.
The story carries on, this time Dolly gets into the fangs of the Shevvingtons. But Christina shows signs of weakening too. She's jealous but luckily she gets a grip on herself.

It's just astonishing what teachers and headmasters were allowed in this book (taking pupils to ski trip, comforting them, demanding dance lessons)...

The writing is quite simply but engaging.
With this ending, I have no idea what is really going on. Is Christina right or wrong???
Profile Image for April Jade.
213 reviews25 followers
May 11, 2025
My girl Christina is back!!! I loved The Fog and this one is just as great to me. Caroline B Cooney's writing and descriptions are so great and vivid. Christina's descriptions of Mrs. Shevington are BRUTAL takedowns; her oatmeal, bran muffin face, corn teeth and looking like a "wicked, beardless Santa Claus" in her ski suit. OUCH. 🥴 But to be fair the Shevingtons do completely deserve it. They took her skiing in jeans! Wet jeans is a complete sensory nightmare!! Oh and don't get me started on Gretchen - mean girl extraordinare. Can't anyone let Dolly read her books in peace??

Some quotes I loved in this one:

"Perhaps the most dangerous thing on Earth is the person who always follows. What if you follow the wrong person? The wrong idea?"

"Scarlet, blue, green and gold were their jackets and scarves. Like a medieval pageant, they trooped on a white world."

"January closed in like a fat dictionary on a pressed flower. Christina felt squashed between the pages of January days."
25 reviews5 followers
November 29, 2007
I liked the second book, Snow a lot better than the first book of the series Fog. The plot of the story is crazy and very strange. The book is about a few island kids having to live on the mainland with their principal and his wife, a teacher. Crazy things happen in the house and the story is very twisted (I don't want to give the ending away). Even though I feel closer to this book than Fog because I've read more about the story I feel that the way Cooney is writing these books, leaves you not that emotional. There is some emotion for example, when things go wrong you do feel the fright. As a reader, I just expected more emotion, and descriptive detail to be put into this book. Even through the negatives I love this book because when I start reading I zone everything else out, and I enter the world of Maine and be one of the kids living with the prinicipal.
Profile Image for Erica Leigh.
692 reviews45 followers
April 3, 2021
More of the same. Christina gets gaslit by creepy adults and everyone marvels at her tri-colored hair.

There really isn’t much snow in the story. They should’ve called it The Tide.

Ending felt out of place. The story didn’t build on anything from the first novel, so it’s hard to understand what the stakes are. Hopefully we’ll get some answers in the finale!
14 reviews
Read
January 17, 2019
I found this book thrilling and exciting. At the end of the previous book, a new character was introduced to the series, and 14 year old Christiana (the protagonist) is sure that Mr and Mrs Shevvington are going to do something horrible to young, innocent Dolly. In this book Christina soon discovers that Dolly is actually very fond and trusting of the Shevvingtons, who believe Christina is a problem child, which causes Christiana to be split. She wants to help Dolly, but at the same time she needs to keep her distances to stay safe. In the end, Dolly is lost and no one can find her, which, according to the Shevvingtons, means that Christiana has something to do with it. Christina ends up saving Dolly and herself, but Christina is still in danger.
Profile Image for Katrina.
1,364 reviews6 followers
May 22, 2025
I have mixed feelings about this one. I will say I listened to the audio while full of a cold so that may have affected my enjoyment. Book 1 was great very atmospheric and stuck with me after I read it. This one reminded me how much the shevingtons angered me, they are great villains, a little too good maybe!! What bothers me the most is the way Christina goes after her friends boyfriend, it’s not cool, plus she’s like 13 or 14 and he’s 18 so it’s icky aswell. Don’t get me wrong nothing happens I just didn’t like it and it made me feel less sorry for her when she is doing that to the only person around who believes her and is consistently nice to her, not to mention Anya has been through it!
Profile Image for Autumn Ketchum.
66 reviews6 followers
May 23, 2025
Another slow burn, but I really enjoyed the ending for this one! Miss Cooney has a very poetic way of writing, it’s very pretty, very dreamy. She’s also really good at making you hate the people you’re supposed to hate and root for Christina. The Shevvingtons are the WORST!
72 reviews2 followers
May 14, 2010
Winter time has come. Christina may have avoided the Shevvington once, but can she do it again. This time there is more at stake. A sixth grader has become the new primarily targets for this sinister couple. How will this little girl full of determination faced enemies hidden in a admiring yet fake curtain secretly doing ill deeds every year.
A great children's book. I made not be the best writer, but I know that this book appeals to me due to its childish yet compelling content of trying to defeat something that is more difficult than it can be imagined. There has always been this thought in my head. How does a child win against adults who are well known for their "so" called facades of benevolence, their charm and ability to put blame on a scapegoat, all planned, all done very effectively. Some things that I have thought of was to bring up evidence that would surely proof it. It shows the spirit of certain children who know their own moral values and put up a struggle against foes who the public most referred to.
Profile Image for Mika.
54 reviews4 followers
August 18, 2007
found a copy of this at a beach house and decided to make it my "beach week reading." the two-star review doesn't reflect the reading experience completely, though. the story was banal enough, but Cooney's writing style was priceless!! every single paragraph contained at least one ridiculous/hilarious simile, the best one being:

"Christina's eyes frosted, as if it had snowed in her brain."

I still remember that sentence, as if it were branded on my cerebellum. seriously. 'snow' wins.
Profile Image for Natalie.
487 reviews1 follower
June 15, 2015
Anya appears to be safe from the Shevvingtons, even though she's still at the inn. However, they have a new surprise - Michael and Benj's sister, Dolly, has come to the mainland a year early. And the Shevvingtons have their next victim.

Everyone is convinced Christina is extremely paranoid. But when Dolly's life is in danger again and again, Christina knows she's the only one that can stand in the Shevvingtons' way. Will she succeed?

Again, suspenseful. The other characters don't believe Christina when she tries to draw attention to the Shevvingtons' behavior.
Profile Image for Emma.
740 reviews144 followers
December 26, 2016
A great psychological thriller - until the last chapter! I'm beyond disappointed with reading the whole book to have the twist (which was actually good and unexpected) revealed in a throwaway sentence and the book wrapped up in one succinct chapter, losing all the thrilling conflict that had been built up over the series.
Aside from the last chapter though, the book was genuinely exciting and I will still read the last book in the series because I want to know how it ends (plus I already paid for the book) but I'm just hoping it doesn't end in the same way as this book did.
Profile Image for Shanda.
32 reviews
March 5, 2012
I think that the Shevvinton's are terrible people. The other characters may not see it but Christina does.This book was suspenceful and I love it.I think Christina is a funny and amazing person, dangerous but amazing. I loved this book a lot a lot a lot.I can't wait till I read the next one. :)
143 reviews
Read
March 5, 2013
The Shevvingtons' motive still hasn't been revealed, tho a few other 'mysteries' have been. Certain descriptions were quite repetitive (Christina's tri-colored hair; Mrs Shevvingtons' 'corn cob' teeth, etc.)
5 reviews1 follower
February 16, 2015
This book was a great addition to the first book. It involves more characters that Christina cares about, and makes Christina realize that a Anya can be saved. But will Christina figure out the truth of who the Shevvingtons are trying to get to?
Profile Image for Hayley Dyer.
96 reviews11 followers
February 25, 2015
I've read this book half a dozen times, and it amazes me that Caroline B. Cooney manages to make me so scared of her characters. The wet suit character fills me with dread and causes my blood to pulse in my veins. She is a master of suspense!
Profile Image for Suzie.
44 reviews
February 6, 2008
Another book in the Losing Christina series.
Absolutely wonderful!!!
Profile Image for Jessie.
1,497 reviews
November 7, 2012
It's really the same as the first just with a new victim. Still an enjoyable thriller.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews

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