Alicia Elliott of the CBC writes that many non-Indigenous horror novelists use "old Indian burial grounds" as an explanation for why white protagonists are haunted.

[1] The Literary Review of Canada wrote that the novel explores a "doubled apocalypse": the fictional breakdown of society is contrasted to the real historical and cultural genocide against the Anishinaabe and other First Nations Peoples.

Justin, a white man, eventually cannibalizes a Native American corpse, serving as a metaphor for cultural genocide.

[4] Rice uses jump cuts in which time passes without explicit description, similar to the works of James Joyce.

[2] Katharine Coldiron compared the novel's tight focus to the style of Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank.

[5] Rice stated in an interview with the Toronto Star that he had always been intrigued by post-apocalyptic stories such as The Lord of the Flies and The Chrysalids.

Katharine Coldiron of Locus praised the novel's "slow, deliberate" prose, calling it a "humble but welcome addition" to the postapocalyptic genre.

[7] The Seattle Book Review gave the novel five out of five possible stars, calling it a "frighteningly plausible" story that "shouldn't be missed".

When one Quebec couple traveled thousands of miles to the community of Old Crow, Yukon in an attempt to avoid COVID-19, many users on Twitter compared the story to a plot point from the novel.

[9] In 2019, Moon of the Crusted Snow received the Evergreen Award, which invites people to read and vote on a selection of Canadian books curated by librarians.