crabbygirl reviewed The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
Review of 'The Country of Ice Cream Star' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
first off: the language pattern is what sets this book apart so a review that doesn't address it is missing half the story. in this post-apocalyptic world, generations are only 20 years long, plenty of time to have language degrade to what some have called a racist use of AAVE, but this interpretation ignores the similar way that French is incorporated and degraded. The 'sleeper' (dead) English is still mostly intact which aligns with the fact that this group has not had their longevity shortened. But the most important function of this altered language is how the author uses it to sneak well-worn ideas/tropes past the readers' jaded pessimism and into their hearts and minds. (This became clear to me when the sex scenes were so HOT using indirect language and my own imagination. I'm starting to understand why poetry is still prominently featured in literature circles: the novel way …
first off: the language pattern is what sets this book apart so a review that doesn't address it is missing half the story. in this post-apocalyptic world, generations are only 20 years long, plenty of time to have language degrade to what some have called a racist use of AAVE, but this interpretation ignores the similar way that French is incorporated and degraded. The 'sleeper' (dead) English is still mostly intact which aligns with the fact that this group has not had their longevity shortened. But the most important function of this altered language is how the author uses it to sneak well-worn ideas/tropes past the readers' jaded pessimism and into their hearts and minds. (This became clear to me when the sex scenes were so HOT using indirect language and my own imagination. I'm starting to understand why poetry is still prominently featured in literature circles: the novel way of expressing ideas IS the point.) Anyhow, another great side effect of this new language and shortened lifespan meant that 'people' were referred to as 'children', and it's impossible to not react, every time, in a visceral way when seeing dead children or children with guns (to differentiate between the adult population and actual children, the word enfant is used. hey, there's that French I was talking about)
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half to two-thirds of the novel but it started to sour on me when our narrator becomes the head of a church cult where she is advised by a (Game of Thrones) Lord Varys type ... And here is where the novel language hides a flaw I should have seen earlier: this is some magic girl! Her brother is the group's leader and when he sickens, the next two in line are conveniently incapable so she becomes the beloved leader. The king of the small-time army and the head of the nearby settlement are both madly in love with her. She tames a Russian foreigner who will also do anything for her. And now? Now she is the 'Maria' of a catholic cult that is the whole city of New York: she is literally worshipped! By the time the story moved to Washington and war, I was tired of her specialness. The booby traps of land mines throughout the city was just too reminiscent of the end of the Hunger Games trilogy and I was none too happy to see that this book is set up to be a series (let me predict the arc: the white Europeans are back to their racist, colonialist roots: they are hoping to harvest a new crop of slaves, using the short generations of the Black Americans to their advantage somehow)
Such a promising start, such a stalled ending.