Sandra Newman's The Country of Ice Cream Star
This was one of those books that I enjoyed while I was reading it, but was never in a big hurry to pick up again once I'd put it down. I mean, it's set in the future, in an America where a plague kills everyone once they turn like 20, so bands of children have to make their way however they can. Ice Cream is 15, and her older brother now has the plague, and she's determined to find a cure--especially once they run into a man who claims to be thirty. But meanwhile, there's a fair amount of rape, violence, and other mayhem. It's not super pleasant reading, even though I was pretty invested in Ice Cream's story. Newman is doing some great things with language here, and her character names especially are pretty inspired. On the other hand, I definitely feel like this could have been shorter--things move really slowly until the second half of the book, which soon becomes even more relentlessly grim. I'm not sure about this one. It has a GREAT narrative voice, but it's really, really bleak. B.
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