The Country of Ice Cream Star - Softcover

Newman, Sandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062227114 ISBN 13: 9780062227119

Publisher: Ecco Press, 2015

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"What an astonishing achievement... I can't remember when I last read something so original or sophisticated or emotionally engaging or so breathtakingly ambitious."--Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life

"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."--Daily Telegraph (London)

"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."--The Guardian

"Entertains with its relentless energy and wild inventiveness"--The Times (London)

"An extraordinary dystopian novel, fizzing with energy and linguistic inventiveness"--Scotsman

"Probably the Next Divergent... The unique dialogue (there's no adults to teach them proper English, after all) and quick pacing make it an engrossing, thrilling read."--Self

"Sandra Newman's novel The Country of Ice Cream Starmakes the Hunger Games seem wimpy."--Wall Street Journal, Speakeasy

"It's a remarkable creation, an approximation of an English whose evolution failed to be nurtured past adolescence and then ossified with new rules and structure in place."--The Onion, A.V. Club

"The voice Newman has created is bold and lyrical and, better still, complete - belonging to her pulp universe alone... I have almost never seen an equal to the beauty she finds in words...I hear more Shakespeare in Ice Cream's cadence than I do anything else."--NPR

There's so much compacted into [Ice Cream Star] that narrowing it down to just one element is impossible. Yet in any description of the book, one thing must be made clear: that Ice Cream Star, despite its post-apocalyptic setting, is not your typical dystopia. It's so, so much scarier."--Bustle.com

Book Description:

Meet Ice Cream Star: the spirited fifteen-year-old heroine of this mind-poppingly inventive post-apocalyptic adventure story and parable of modern America

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062227114
• ISBN 13: 9780062227119
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 592