The Country of Ice Cream Star

This book started so well, hooked me in and I read and read. It was a recommended title for strong female young adults. OK, cool world building initially, interesting use of language. Very intense scenes and strong dialog. And then.. and then... I read and read and kept going thinking there must be a payoff, there must be a reason, there must be an ending and there wasn't. The book just basically stopped, and I was so, so, pissed and my eyes were fried and my wallet was lighter and all because of this book. Because the writing is strong, but the plotting, oh the plotting, the editing appears nonexistent and I suddenly realized ITS A SERIAL TV SHOW. Strong pilot sucks you in and you start watching and caring. Episode introducing characters not so much drama, episode introducing family drama!, episode introducing possible love interest drama!, episode with love interest #2 drama! episode with fighting drama!, episode with rape drama!, episode with love drama!. Then finally exhausted, episode lost battle, THE END. This book needed a really good editor, it could have been so much more.

Probably Spoilers...The Country of Ice Cream Star is a pretty hefty novel to dissect... It takes place in a future, dystopic America. The majority of the characters are under the age of 18, because generally around that time a plague like disease strikes them and they die. The main protagonist is 15 yr old Ice Cream Star. If you're already put off because this is starting to sound like one out a million YA dystopian novels, then stop, because this is nothing like that. Some people may be squeamish about underage sex, war, murder, etc., but this has been their life for as long as they've known-and when living to 20 is considered a long life...well... Nothing felt gratuitous to me-just plainly spoken in Ice Cream's matter of fact voice. Which brings me to the next point, and which seems to be the reason for so many low reviews of this book. The dialect. About 99% of the book is written in an invented patois. It's like a Babel of mish mash language-which admittedly does take some getting used to, but if you can hang in there then it will eventually become much easier to understand. I think Sandra Newman could have reached a wider audience without this vernacular, but for me the book would have been much more ordinary. I grew to like it. And Ice Cream Star is an amazing character. I loved her. Her naïveté is just right for the unknown things she encounters. But she's not a stupid character. She doesn't change into a completely different character all of a sudden. She's genuinely a good, brave, kind person. She's tough and funny and resourceful. You're not sitting there screaming at the protagonist in your head that they're missing something that's right in front of their face. I hate when some character that's supposedly going to save the world can't figure out the obvious. Ice Cream isn't perfect, but the things she didn't see coming-I didn't either.A lot goes on in this book, and then it ends rather adbruptly. I got to 97% on my Kindle and was thinking, um, I'm missing some pages...but thankfully Sandra Newman is working on a sequel.So summing things up, there are different bands of children living near each other in the Massachusetts woods. Russian soldiers are roaming around kidnapping children from the different tribes. Ice Cream's older brother gets sick. They end up catching a Russian soldier, teaching him their language and befriending him. They learn that other soldiers are on their way and they're not nice. They decide to move farther North. They get waylaid and end up in New York by another group. Ice Cream learns Russian soldiers are going to be in Quantico and that they have a cure for the disease that's killing her brother and eventually everyone else. Several groups band together to fight these Russians. That's the dumbed down synopsis.So, yeah. There's a lot people could nit pick this book over. Race, religion, class, white privilege, blah, blah-but sometimes it's ok to just enjoy a fictional book. I loved this novel and I really hope the sequel isn't years away.

This may be the most important book I've read all year. Simply because: the protagonist is a 15-year-old African American girl who fights through loss and adversity to save those she loves. Not enough books have this kind of heroine, and the author does a brilliant job of letting the characters reveal themselves over time, instead of giving blatant descriptions of race and physicality.In this dystopian novel, an illness has caused people to die by the ages of 18 or 20. The world, therefore, is run by children. The story is told by Ice Cream Star, and she introduces the reader to the other uniquely-named children in their nomadic band. Her older brother Driver is the leader of their people, but when Driver contracts the deadly illness which shadows their lives, Ice Cream becomes the leader, determined to find a cure. Standing loyally at her side is a man with pale skin and blue eyes - the type of strange person who is known as a "Roo" - and who knows more of the world beyond Ice Cream's people, possibly even where to find a cure. Along with her unlikely helper, Ice Cream is a brave warrior who tenderly watches out for the younger children in her care, calling them by age "my sixes" or "my tens". She is clever, compassionate, and continually thinks of others before herself.Because the world is run by children who die so young, this is a story of teens involved in sex and war, who must make their own rules about everything. I feel that the author deals with these topics in a realistic and sensible way, though the story definitely takes on some difficult topics. Overall the writing is stunning: the children have their own way of speaking, using words such as "bone" to describe something solid and true, or "bell" to mean beautiful. Reading it for the prose and language alone is reason enough to take on this impressive story.Ice Cream Fifteen Star is a hero who loves and fights with everything she has, continually looking for hope in a world of chaos. Though flawed - realistically imperfect - I'm glad to have Ice Cream Star as a new literally hero for young girls to look up to.

I kept swinging between enjoying this book and being deeply bored by it. The language is jarring to start with but eventually you settle into it and it becomes more natural. There is a nice rhythm to it. It was an interesting idea but at over 600 pages it failed to maintain interest all the way through. I have no problem with long books but they need to be able to justify their length. This one had a lot of repetition and a lot of places where I found my mind drifting off while I read. I think probably about a third at least of the book could have been cut and it would have made this a great read.

I can't go on. I've reached page 360 and I'm throwing in the towel. What began as a compelling, addictive read has become a ridiculous bit of desperation to fill up 630 pages. For the first 200 pages, I was gripped. I enjoyed the rhythm and challenge of the patois even though at times it did detract from the development of the plot - which probably would have been more gripping without the dialect. But now - oh, the disappointment! I've become bored by this novel that had so much promise. It feels like it is written by a small child grabbing at ideas that don't seem to tally. Life is short. Alas I need to turn my attentions elsewhere. I am slightly incredulous as to how this made it to the Baileys prize longlist. Good luck all you readers out there.

Wow, where do I start with this book. I thought it was pretty wonderful. It's set in a post apocalyptic America, about 80 years after a virus has wiped out most of the population. The people who are left behind are all black and all children, dying of 'posies' before they reach their 20s. Ice Cream Star is 15 and part of community called Sengals. They hunt and live in the Messa woods, and search old 'evac' houses for clothing and supplies. The amazing thing about this book is that Sandra Newman has created a language, a kind of English dialect, which at first is a little jarring, but soon easy to understand. A few chapters in and my own thoughts were in Ice Cream's language. And it was really hard to shake it after I'd finished. So a pretty immersive read. It's a long book, and so took me a long time to read, but it was well worth it. Ice Cream is a brilliant strong character and leads the story of this unsettling world, through capture, becoming a Queen, and Russian invasion, always looking to do the "right" thing.“I know, ain't evils in no life nor cruelties in no red hell can change the vally heart of Ice Cream Star.”

A very solid work with great characterisation. I've never been a fan of invented languages as plot device, I find them more of a barrier than any benefit provided in evoking a world or culture, however the "corrupted english" dialect used here wasn't over done and became less obtrusive as the book progressed.Well worth reading.

Well, I gather the reviews have been mixed, but I loved it. The dialogue rang true and I found myself 'learning' it as I went along. A page turner, evokative, and an interesting foray into possible post-apocolypic tribes/mentalities. Agree that the ending could have been stronger, but gripped throughout.