The Country of Ice Cream Star came to me almost by accident.  The library on post hosted an event around Valentine's Day called Blind Date with a Book.  I chose one based on nothing more than a genre and a vague blurb.  And it was unlike anything I've ever read.

It is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian, young adult novel set in the future.  It takes place in the remains of what was once the United States.  But disease and war has left the country decimated.  The overwhelming population is black or Hispanic, and even this population is left with a crippling disease that leaves what's left of the country run by children.

The story was fantastic, filled with sometimes subtle messages about society and values.  Faith, or the lack of it, plays a huge role in how new micro-societies have been formed and how they are run.  There are shreds of recognizable faith from our own reality, but it has been changed by the experiences these children have gone through and by time.  Race, too, plays a pivotal role.  It highlights how assumptions about race can evolve into entire belief systems.

But the most distinctive aspect of this book is the patois.  This is what made the book almost magical to me.  The book was written in an evolved version of street language, peppered liberally with Russian and French derivations.  Not just the dialogue, but the entire book.  From a technical standpoint, this awes me because of the sheer creativity it takes to undertake such a thing, and to do it successfully.  And this is not a short book.  As a linguist, this got my juices flowing.

Is it difficult to read?  Yes, it can be.  Having the language background that I do probably helped a little because I recognized a lot of the root words as French and Russian and could translate those easily.  Sometimes it was the evolved English that gave me the most trouble, words that had developed over fictional time to be used in different ways, in different forms and contexts.  Nouns that are now verbs.  Verbs that have become nouns.  Even familiar places are made unfamiliar with the new language.

This patois is something that I've seen turn many readers away, but I urge you to give this a shot.  It probably does take a great deal more concentration to read it, but the story is well worth it.  And the concept is just so unique that the experience is fantastic.

Reading The Country of Ice Cream Star(TCICS) I was reminded of two novels. The first is Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker (review). It too depicts a post-apocalyptic world where a young, driven hero journeys from a parochial life into a much larger world and finds himself playing a much larger role than he had dreamed possible. In both books, the heroes retain an essential decency and innate moral resilience despite becoming wiser to how the world works. And both books are written in an invented dialect. In TCICS – as well as in Riddley Walker – the narrator’s English serves to bring her circumstances alive in a way that writing the novel in Standard English wouldn’t have. Everything Ice Cream sees, feels and does is brought into sharper focus because the reader has to experience it from a slightly skewed perspective. I can only describe the writing as “exuberant.” There’s an energy in it that makes reading it a pleasure.

The second book I’m reminded of is William Nolan’s Logan's Run. Here again we have a dystopian future. A true nightmare: a world run by teen-agers, where life ends at 21. In Logan’s Run, the death sentence is enforced by the Sandmen of Deep Sleep. In the world of Ice Cream Star, it’s plague that has carried off everyone over 21, and it continues to do so. Every child gets the “posies” around 18 or 19, and every child dies before their 21st year.

Ice Cream Sixteen Star is the oldest girl of a group of nomads – the Sengles – who are currently living near the ruins of Lowell, Mass., alongside more sedentary groups like the Lowells, the Christings and the Nat Mass Armies.

My mother and my grands and my great-grands been Sengle pure. Our people be a tarry night sort, and we skinny and long. My brother Driver climb a tree with only hands, because our bones so light, our muscles fortey strong. We flee like a dragonfly over water, we fight like ten guns, and we be bell to see. Other children go deranged and unpredictable for our love.

 

We Sengles be a wandering sort. We never grown nothing from anything, never had no tato patch nor cornfield. Be thieves, and brave to hunt. A Sengle hungry even when he eat, even when he rich, he still want to grab and rob, he hungry for something he ain’t never seen nor thought of. We was proud, we was ridiculous as wild animals, but we was bell and strong. (p. 3)

 

The delicate balance among the various groups is soon disrupted when the Sengles capture a “roo,” short for – as we learn – “Russian.” Pasha, apparently a deserter, tells Ice Cream that there’s a cure for the “posies” but it’s on the ships of an invading army down near Washington. Ice Cream determines to get that cure – both for the sake of her brother, who is showing signs of the disease, and for the sake of all her Sengles, in fact, for the sake of every child. And so begins her journey into a wider and more dangerous world than anything she’s seen. From New York – now known as Ciudad de las Marias, a catholic theocracy run by a gaggle of adolescent cardinals who would give the Renaissance Papacy a run for its money – to Quantico, where a band of “marines” holds on to the sacred grounds of the Mall, to confronting the invaders and wresting the cure from them (sort of).

Not to spoil it too much, but the ending is not a “happy” one. Not in the sense that Ice Cream and her allies save the day and bring a new, better way of life to the Nighted States. It’s messy, like life, and that’s what makes it so much more satisfying than otherwise. As Ice Cream writes at the conclusion:

And I know inside this final loss, I going to save this place. I be small in all this blackness world, this ship of drunken vampires, but through my hearten wounds, I living yet, and all my love the same. Nor death been ever arguments to me, I know my truth. I know ain’t evils in no life nor cruelties in no red hell can change the vally heart of Ice Cream Star. (p. 580)

 

TCICS compares favorably with Riddley Walker. I thoroughly enjoyed it and – after a long drought – can recommend something without reservation. This is a remarkable book, certainly the best new fiction I’ve read so far this year, and Ice Cream has joined my list of “favorite characters.”

Sweet innocent Kylie just lost her much loved Dad in a horrible accident. He left her the evil stepmother who throws her out after accusing her of sleeping with her men toys. She takes what little she owns and heads to Nashville to fulfill a promise she made to her father. She is going to be a country star ! She need a job, a place to sleep and a place to play. After finding those she meets the biggest ego, drunkest player in town and there begins a new chapter on the country road of heartbreak and song.
It was cheesy, unbelievable, things just came together too easy, she was too naive, she was a virgin, luckily that wasn't a big issue in the story, and had some really dumb moments.
It was also, sweet, kind, warmhearted and sexy, wow somebody went to the peak ! It was what it was a country romance. The sex was written, nothing over done. The romance was nicely paced with cliffhanger to keep you coming back for book 2.
A Kindle freebie-

In Taming the Country Star by Margo Bond Collins, Kylie Andrews is not happy to learn that country star Cole Grayson is in town. When she had a holiday affair with him in Mexico she was happy, until she found out he had been lying to her about his identity. And ever since she has been avoiding anything to do with him, be it a song on the radio or a poster of his, but now she can no longer hide.

Close Grayson is on a mission to get Kylie back, he made a mistake by not telling her his real identity, but he also had his reasons for hiding. But a zealous reporter had to find him and Kylie in a compromising position when he took his picture, which just made Kylie run even faster. Read More...

This month Bliss is excited to release two novellas you will not want to miss. Making Waves by Ophelia London and our second Red-Hot Bliss, Taming the Country Star by Margo Bond Collins.  So whether you are in the mood for something sweet or something with a little more spice Bliss has you covered.

 

She’s in over her head and he’s in hot water…

Visiting her friends Ellie and Charlie in Hawaii was supposed to be a much-needed vacation for journalist Justine Simms. But when she learns the notoriously reclusive pro-surfer Chase Ryder is coming out of retirement for a competition, she knows she’s found the perfect exclusive to save her career. Of course, then she learns he’s the gorgeous, secretly nerdy guy who broke her heart a year ago.

Will Davenport—aka Chase Ryder—doesn't do interviews. He keeps his real name out of the papers and doesn’t mix his public life with his private. That is, until the still-heartbroken Justine blackmails him into giving her an exclusive. Seeing Justine, stunningly beautiful as ever, brings back all the feelings he had before. But despite their smoldering attraction, nothing has changed since he had to leave her the first time.

 

He'll do anything to win her heart. She'll do anything to keep him away.

Country star Cole Grayson is in town, and Kylie Andrews is less than thrilled. As if months of changing the radio station and tearing down his posters weren’t bad enough, now she has to deal with a town of fans swarming toward the man who deceived her the year before. But when Kylie’s eyes meet Cole’s again, she can’t deny the electric chemistry that drew her to him the first time around.

Cole Grayson is on a mission. Ever since Kylie left him, he hasn’t been able to forget her sweet country smile. After writing a song just for her, he sets off for her hometown to prove he’s not the player she thinks he is. But as much as Cole can’t forget her, Kylie wonders if she can forgive him…