Book Review: Icy Sparks

RATING:

2.75 cookies out of 5

What's it about?

Icy Sparks is a rather short coming-of-age novel about a young girl growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky in the 1950’s with her grandparents, and, undiagnosed Tourette’s Syndrome. This leads to outbursts, “croaks”, eye-popping, and other strange behaviours that isolate the girl from her teachers and classmates and ultimately from the world around her.

Favourite Quotes:

“The world’s my church, not some mess of people crowded together on itty bitty wooden pews.”

Who would enjoy it?

I think this book can appeal to a wide range of readers who enjoy the naivetés and fears of childhood and youth. It has moments of real hilarity, as well as heartbreaking sadness, and you can’t help but root for Icy to find herself amongst all the anxiety and confusion.   

What I liked:

What I enjoyed most of all was ultimately the writing. It was passionate, descriptive, and striking, and inspired much thought. Icy is an intelligent and stubborn girl who the author quickly makes you love, and I really liked following her throughout the story. It reminded me (in a good way) of other books I’ve read about the struggle outcast’s face in society, and I found this particularly endearing. It also had great, authentic southern/1950’s dialogue and style which added depth that kept me moving through the slower parts.

What I didn’t like:

To be honest, while this is clearly a wonderful, intelligent, deservedly-award winning novel, I didn’t much enjoy the last half of it. While Icy is painted throughout the entire story as a very intelligent character trying to overcome her personal demons, in the end (SPOILER ALERT!) she has a “come-to-God” moment at a Pentecostal church and finds solace in religion. The book seems to send out the message that ultimately if you accept Jesus’ love, you will no longer be an outcast, and this felt to me like an incredibly lazy way to end the story. Rather than show Icy learning to get over her insecurities by really facing them, and find a non-religious place of acceptance, the author cops out and turns a smart, agnostic character into a bible-thumping one and I really didn’t enjoy that. While it seems to bring Icy some peace, it sure didn't bring me any.  

Overall:
Despite my displeasure with Icy Sparks, I do believe that it is a book many will enjoy, especially those feel out of place, are searching for spirituality or who themselves have found peace within God’s embrace. It is a hopeful novel with a happy ending, that successfully brings adults back to the world of childhood, and because of this I think it would be a great addition to many summer reading lists.