I have two books to recommend.
The first is called The Country of Ice Cream Star, by Sandra Newman, and I will tell you that initially I struggled to make it through even the first paragraph (it’s the kind of book that starts out with nothing making sense, AND it’s in a dialect, AND the main character’s name is “Ice Cream Star,” which, no) and closed the book and thought “Nope.” And yet it has ended up a leading contender for My Favorite Book of the Year, which is a decision we take very seriously at the library where I work. Also, I ended up finding the dialect charming/delightful to the point of being TOUCHING, and I enjoyed the sudden little epiphanies of where certain words came from.
(image from Amazon.com)
And so you know I must have opened it up again at some point after originally closing it, and indeed, that is what happened: I opened it up again because it’s a post-apocalyptic type of book and I was really in the mood for one of those. I struggled through the first page or two, and then stopped and consulted William, who is majoring in linguistics along with computer science, to see what he thought about whether the dialect was racist; and he read the first page or two, and got out his laptop and went typey-typey-typey for awhile, and then he said, “Without spoiling anything…I’ll say it looks like she knows what she’s doing.” He said there was a lot of talk about the dialect being racist, but it seemed to be from people who had my first reaction: feeling it MUST BE racist, without knowing much if anything about the topic. I realize this was (1) the quick assessment (2) of a blonde white guy, so I wouldn’t call it conclusive if I were researching for anyone else’s purposes, but it was enough to let ME keep reading, at least for the time being.
I don’t know how to explain the book to you. Can you maybe get it from your library so you can just TRY IT without it mattering if you don’t like it? Because I’m worried that anything I say about it will talk you OUT of it. For starters: it takes place after a pandemic that killed almost everyone, and continues to kill people before they reach full adulthood. You know me as someone who cannot tolerate Child In Danger stuff, and all of these children are in danger, and there is, well, there is a lot of dying in this book. And yet.
And as I mentioned, it’s in a dialect, William said it looked like it was a creole, and I am not generally interested in wrestling with that. So this is a book that, if YOU had described it to ME, I don’t think I would have read it! And yet! I loved it so much! I just loved it so much!
SPEAKING OF WHICH, the second book I want to recommend, which is also a contender for My Favorite Book of the Year, and which also is a book that if you described it to me I don’t think I would want to read it:
(image from Target.com)
We All Want Impossible Things, by Catherine Newman (Target link; Amazon link). I pre-ordered this not once but twice, by accident. I ordered it (twice) because Catherine Newman is on my very short list of authors whose books I will always pre-order.
But maybe you’re noticing this was published in November of last year and I’m only mentioning it now. Well. The thing is. It’s about a woman whose best friend dies in hospice of cancer. And each time I looked at my To Read pile, I thought “I’m not up to that right now.” And then I finally depleted my To Read pile to the point where I thought “OKAY LET’S DO THIS.”
And I loved the book so much, I want to tell everyone I know to PLEASE PLEASE READ IT, because YES, YES, it is about a woman’s best friend dying in hospice, and YES it is so so sad, you are NOT WRONG to think you will cry numerous times—but it is ALSO such a funny and delightful book, much funnier and much more delightful than you would expect considering the subject matter. And I think it wonderfully demonstrates many of the things I love about having teenagers. And if you are already a fan of Catherine Newman and her Ben & Birdy blog from long ago, you will recognize so many true things! And, combined with the fact that this is a fictionalized account of the actual death of Catherine Newman’s actual best friend, you will nosily wonder what ELSE in it is true, if you know what I mean, and if you read it YOU WILL KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
So this is a recommendation of TWO BOOKS that BOTH have plots that may make you think you don’t want to read them, but I am telling you (1) I FELT THE SAME and (2) BUT TRY THEM BECAUSE YOU MAY FIND YOU END UP FEELING AS I DO ABOUT THEM. I have already given one or the other of these books as birthday gifts, and I plan to keep doing that all year.
I am VERY intrigued by the Ice Cream Star book, maybe enough to break my No Library Holds restriction (I have too many books that I OWN on my literal nightstand that I have not yet read). The Catherine Newman one sounds too close to home, plus I don’t like crying ANYWAY, but… It’s so hard to ignore such a strong recommendation!
Added to my “to read” list. Love your recommendations. Is it just a coincidence that both authors have the same last name?
*astonished face* It IS a coincidence, and what it astonishing to me is that I DID NOT NOTICE!!
I noticed this right away and thought the plot twist at the end of this post was that the Newmans were sisters!
Will have to check both out!
I LOVE Catherine Newman! She was blogging when my kids were just a little smaller than hers. Her other books are delightful.
Well I’m sold! I will try them both.
Something I have realized in recent months/years is that just because I add a book to my to-read list, and just because I bring a book home from the library (or check it out on Libby), DOES NOT MEAN I have to actually read it! I can just flip through it and decide it’s not for me! But I can give it a chance! This has been very freeing and has led to me reading some great books I might have otherwise been afraid of not liking and thus avoided.
YES! Book freedom! We can try things and decide against them.
(I generally have a policy of reading all books about telegraph operators, so when I ran into the one by Henry James, while I am not a Henry James fan in general, I figured I’d give it a shot, but then concluded no, it was not my jam even though the protagonist is a female telegraph operator. It was pretty miserable.)
Not a comment on the books, just a suggestion you may want to keep in your pocket for a gift for William: Dialect the game. I was gifted it and I love it so much, but it’s kind of hard to get people to play it with me, so if he is the type of person who has game-loving friends and family (sounds like he does…), he may love it as well. https://thornygames.com/pages/dialect
I read “We All Want” about a month ago, which was pretty damn hard after having gone through 2 years of cancer as the primary caregiver for my husband, who died in 2021. The man I just started dating brought me a copy of the book on our first date, not knowing my past (other than that I am a widow). We had bonded over our love of books and brought it to me because he had purchased a copy for himself and thought it would be interesting to read it and discuss it together.
After he realized the story, he was aghast and suggested I not read it. I told him I would do it anyway, and take it slowly. So I did. And the story is so beautiful and fucked up and real and so, so, so familiar. It was very hard at times, but there was just enough difference in the best friend dynamic vs. wife/husband dynamic that I could finish. I am not in a hurry to re-read it, but I thought it was very good. Newman is new to me, and I look forward to her other books.
You are making very compelling arguments for books I would never choose for myself. I will consult with Libby about them.
This made me laugh. I, too, am consulting with Libby right now.
I just had one of those books where I never would have read it but…
It was Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos, and it is the most hopeful, happily-ending book about terminal brain cancer and hallucinations the holocaust and familial abandonment and loss and long-term guilt and betrayal, that I have ever read.
(a friend had given it to me when she was moving and not taking her books with her because of mold allergies, and this friend is generally not great at book recommendations for me, so I was leafing through the stack of books, and I didn’t think it was going to fly but then I read a bit, and then I flipped forward [because never ever trust that a book which is pleasant in the first few pages will *stay* pleasant] and… hm, interesting, still good; and flipped forward again, and by the time I realized I had read over a dozen pages near the end of the book and it was *still good* I started over from the beginning. This does mean that some surprises were not surprises, which was really helpful to me for reducing stress levels, though, so it would not be the same reading experience if you read it straight from the beginning.)
(but still: a book I would NOT have read [all the topics! plus some surrealism! NOPE!] and actually I loved it. So.)
—
This is the second time I have run into We All Want Impossible Things *but* my mom is about to have the appointment with the surgery team about removing her breast cancer so I feel like this is probably not the time. But it’s a glorious title and it sounds like it’s a really good book so maybe at some point…
If people have recommendations for gentle books for your parents getting older and probably not having much time on the clock, I would love to hear them.
Maybe not a gentle book, but I do think Being Mortal should be required reading for everyone with aging parents. It’s non-fiction and partly it talks about how to deal with end-of-life issues in a way that really honors the person and what is important to them. To me it was surprisingly not depressing, but instead very thought provoking, but I don’t have parents who are at the end of life right now, so it might feel different if you do.
I found Katy Butler’s The Art of Dying Well to be both beautiful and genuinely helpful. And I’d second Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande.
I adore Catherine Newman and have loved everything she’s ever written. She’s one of the reasons I started a blog in the first place. I loved Impossible Things so much.
I love Catherine Newman and I also loved this book, although I was concerned about the premise going in…but I inhaled it. Off to add the other to my Libby!
Yes to reading everything Catherine Newman writes, no questions asked! Me, too!
The Ice Cream Star description is making me remember a similar plot to a show I came across by accident. Luke Perry is in it, and I remember wondering why Dylan McKay was wandering around a post apocalyptic hellscape wearing leather pants. Theo Huxtable is also in it. It had really random sex scenes that were a bit much (I saw parts of Theo that I really didn’t expect to nor need to see) so I think it was on Cinemax.
I’m purposefully not googling it because describing it in the worst way possible is making me laugh.
That second book sounds a lot like The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste Fletcher McHale – which I thought was going to be a light, breezy read; it was and it wasn’t and I cried my eyes out. But loved it. And would definitely recommend as it was a story of friendship and love.
I have made a note and will check out both of these eventually – I have to get through the books I already have before I place any more holds.
I’m surprised William found info saying Ice Cream Star dialect didn’t seem racist because that is one of the criticisms that I’ve heard about the book. I am not sure if I can find the article again though.
I did find it but the article that led to the controversy i was remembering was mostly about her newer book THE MEN. Anyway, not trying to discount your experience of enjoying the book!
http://www.anamardoll.com/2022/03/the-men-introduction.html?m=1
Just have to say that William’s studies sound very cool! Good for him.
I remember when Ice Cream Star came out I read an interview with the author. It did not…endear her to me. She said things like “everyone is young and uneducated so a dialect based on AAVE made sense” and when the interviewer asked a startlingly racist question assuming that “literary fiction” readers are unfamiliar with “AAVE” and may find it off-putting, she seemed to agree with the premise???? She’s on my “bad vibes don’t read” list for sure. (BTW I use AAVE in quotes because it’s what they said, but I believe the correct current term is just AAE.)
Thank you for these intriguing recommendations! Catherine Newman – I didn’t read her blog faithfully but of course knew exactly who you meant the minute I saw her name. :)
Yes, yes I will try them. This makes me think of a movie called Career Girls, which my husband and I started and turned off because of some weird way of talking, and someone told me to try again and I did, and it was wonderful, and then one of the amazing actresses died way too young, which also fits in with your book thing. It also makes me think of The Trees by Percival Everett, which I stumbled on by pure chance as a library ebook, and it chills me to think I might never have found the book otherwise, and it is impossible to describe without sounding quite off-putting and yet is one of my favourite books ever.
I know exactly what you mean by wondering whether That Other Thing was based on Catherine’s life too. I was so desperate to know that I googled and googled and while I did not find an answer, the suggested search terms indicated I was not alone in my wondering. (And I also found a lovely house tour she did, and touring her house made me love her even more, so the googling was not wasted.)