The Country of Ice Cream Star
Author(s): Sandra Newman
In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive dystopian thriller, told in bold and fierce language, from a remarkable literary talent.
My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star and this be the tale of how I bring the cure to all the Nighted States . . .
In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off of the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a mysterious disease they call Posies—a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.
When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting with her whole heart and soul to protect the only world she has ever known.
Guardian First Book Award finalist Sandra Newman delivers an extraordinary post-apocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas. Like Hushpuppy in The Beasts of the Southern Wild grown to adolescence in a landscape as dangerously unpredictable as that of Ready Player One, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.
Review(s):
“What an astonishing achievement… I can’t remember when I last read something so original or sophisticated or emotionally engaging or so breathtakingly ambitious.”
“A richly detailed dystopian epic… This suspenseful, provocative tale is The Hunger Games meets Lord of the Flies and The Walking Dead, only much, much better.”
“This literary dystopia inhabits a fully imagined, remarkably inventive universe with its own bizarre rituals and language.”
Newman’s novel is ambitious, taking on race, sex, class, religion, politics, and war all at once. What sets the work apart is its unapologetic narrator, whose fantastically unbridled, wholly teenage point of view renders each page a pleasure to read.”
“This literary dystopia inhabits a fully imagined, remarkably inventive universe with its own bizarre rituals and language... the patient reader will be intrigued by the poetic prose and captivated by the exploits of Ice Cream Star.”
“Newman’s story is inventive, her characters memorable… Praiseworthy for its solid efforts at worldbuilding…”
“A treat, full of supple metaphors and rhythmic lyricism… This is an obvious candidate for Hunger Games-hungry Hollywood to pluck out the linguistic heart that makes it special. Take a look before that happens.”
“Stylish and accomplished”
“What sets [this book] apart from its rivals is the extraordinary, blistering insistence of its language...As the momentum builds... raw, addictive lyricism develops...By the last page I was emotionally battered but euphoric: the book had held me so effectively hostage that I felt I had Stockholm syndrome.”
“As inventive as it is captivating”
ISBN: 9780062227119