The Snow Child question

I just finished rereading it, and I believe she turned into snow and that’s where all the snow came from on Mabel and on the blanket. Since she can create snow, I think that’s how she died. My personal theory is that she was a real girl who died with her father, but when Jack & Mabel create the snow girl, she is brought back as a magical snow being. My mom read the book and she was really disappointed because she is a mother baby nurse, and saw it as more literal and didn’t believe in the magic like I did. She was frustrated that she “disappeared” after everything she went through, but to me Faina passed away and turned back in to snow.

I absolutely loved this book. It's a mystical tale filled with wonder. However, I strongly disagree with the ending. As a teacher of mine once said "Cliff-hangers are the laziest way to end a book".

Sure, in making her completely disappear (and leaving her clothes behind) the author opens everything up to interpretation. However, It would have been so much better to have a definitive answer.

I personally believe she went to the river and drowned like Mabel once wanted because her life grew too restrictive for her. Restrictive and so far from her true self that she seeks freedom in death.

It would have been beautiful though if she had simply kept her family and taken them with her. Or, if she decided to leave and come back every few months like she had originally done.

Either way, it was an amazing novel.

I think she became ill after the birth, she seemed to have signs of fever, infection and weakness, and maybe she got delirious and went into the woods naked? Or she knew she was dying and headed into the woods to die, like how some animals go and find somewhere secluded to die.

I kind of like that idea too. Just seems more realistic than “melting”

All through the book she walked on the snow mostly. At the end she sunk into it. :( I don't know what it means but just putting it out here.

I like Nuran's idea.

The perfect ending. Like the rest of the book, which reads simultaneously as a fantasy and a family origin story. Disappearing is not a cliff-hanger or a puzzle.

This was one of my favorite magical realism novels. All through the story I had the feeling that Faina would have to disappear for good at the end. My take on it is that her physical body had "died" with her father but her spirit came back as a magical snow being, and when she realized how confining her life would be if she stayed she left her snow body and returned to her life as pure spirit in the non-physical world.