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I started reading this on the Serial Reader app but finally paid for the full version so I didn't have to wait so long to finish it.

"Guess he's been in Starkfield too many winters."

I read this long ago, in 8th or 9th grade. I imagine we were assigned this at that age because it was a short novel, more of a novella, but it could not possibly have been as meaningful without having lived through some life first. Probably back then we were looking at Ethan and the symbols of winter, but this time around for me I was more interested in the character of Mattie, his desire for this warm and bright girl, and all the dreams that can never be. I thought it was beautiful, chilling, and heartbreaking.

"She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair, which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun."

But don't get me wrong, because the writing about the winter is one of the best things about this novel.

"Here and there a star pricked through, showing behind it a deep well of blue. In an hour or two the moon would push over the ridge behind the farm, burn a gold-edged rent in the clouds, and then be swallowed by them. A mournful peace hung on the fields, as though they felt the relaxing grasp of the cold and stretched themselves in their long winter sleep."

The ending is a bit punishing but reflects the era.