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421 reviews for:
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
Blair Braverman
3.89 AVERAGE
421 reviews for:
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
Blair Braverman
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I am such a huge fan of Blair’s. I love her Twitter stories and her life is so wild and fascinating. So, I decided to read her book.
This memoir has very little sled dog action. Almost no mention of individual dogs and their quirks, just a couple stories of particular runs. This is mostly about Blair’s time in rural Norway and two summers on an Alaskan glacier. It is also very much about how her relationship with her own psyche and body, her decision-making process, and her relationships with other people were deeply affected by abuse from men.
Now, when you hear her story—the casual unwanted touches, the sex jokes, the pushy boyfriend—you might think, “Really? Isn’t her PTSD a bit of an over reaction?” (I guess it could be called PTSD? I’m not really sure what the correct name is for the long-lasting ill ease that every woman faces when she is in a room with men). But these questions plagued Blair, plague every woman, and fill us with self doubt that infects every level of our psychology and relationships. I am convinced that Blair’s story is universal for 100% of women (the parts about interactions with men.... not the arctic living), and she does a really awesome job of unpacking those interactions to show how they completely shaped a decade of her life. It is hard for many of us to put into words how unwanted sexual banter or attention makes us feel. Uncomfortable? Ok, needing to pee is uncomfortable. So what? But it’s so much deeper. For example, Blair went through a whole see-saw of reactions in a single day on the Alaskan ice after a breakup with her abusive coworker: from wearing men’s clothes to hide her body in shame and to deflect male attention, to posing for photos in a bikini to prove self-ownership and provoke anger in her ex, and back to retreating into blankets and self-loathing. Why does she boast to a group of men about a sexual escapade that was in reality a rape? To earn the men’s respect and convince herself to not think about the R word. Why does she go along with situations where she is uncomfortable and potentially in danger? Because keeping quiet is less exhausting than trying to convince people that she is in the right; because she tried asking for help already and was turned away; because other people saw and said it was nothing; because to speak out is to ostracize yourself from the group (all the more in rural and remote places... there is no “I’ll just make other friends”); because participating is to earn acceptance; because she agreed to something and thus had an obligation to see it through, etc etc. I understand all of this. I think all women do.
So yeah, this is a great book for talking about what consent is, what abuse looks like (quiet abuse—the most dangerous kind), and what a healthy relationship does and doesn’t look like. I would read this with a young person over a lot of other books because it is THAT full of conversation potential. Plus, ya know, Blair just qualified for the Iditarod this week, so she’s a badass.
This memoir has very little sled dog action. Almost no mention of individual dogs and their quirks, just a couple stories of particular runs. This is mostly about Blair’s time in rural Norway and two summers on an Alaskan glacier. It is also very much about how her relationship with her own psyche and body, her decision-making process, and her relationships with other people were deeply affected by abuse from men.
Now, when you hear her story—the casual unwanted touches, the sex jokes, the pushy boyfriend—you might think, “Really? Isn’t her PTSD a bit of an over reaction?” (I guess it could be called PTSD? I’m not really sure what the correct name is for the long-lasting ill ease that every woman faces when she is in a room with men). But these questions plagued Blair, plague every woman, and fill us with self doubt that infects every level of our psychology and relationships. I am convinced that Blair’s story is universal for 100% of women (the parts about interactions with men.... not the arctic living), and she does a really awesome job of unpacking those interactions to show how they completely shaped a decade of her life. It is hard for many of us to put into words how unwanted sexual banter or attention makes us feel. Uncomfortable? Ok, needing to pee is uncomfortable. So what? But it’s so much deeper. For example, Blair went through a whole see-saw of reactions in a single day on the Alaskan ice after a breakup with her abusive coworker: from wearing men’s clothes to hide her body in shame and to deflect male attention, to posing for photos in a bikini to prove self-ownership and provoke anger in her ex, and back to retreating into blankets and self-loathing. Why does she boast to a group of men about a sexual escapade that was in reality a rape? To earn the men’s respect and convince herself to not think about the R word. Why does she go along with situations where she is uncomfortable and potentially in danger? Because keeping quiet is less exhausting than trying to convince people that she is in the right; because she tried asking for help already and was turned away; because other people saw and said it was nothing; because to speak out is to ostracize yourself from the group (all the more in rural and remote places... there is no “I’ll just make other friends”); because participating is to earn acceptance; because she agreed to something and thus had an obligation to see it through, etc etc. I understand all of this. I think all women do.
So yeah, this is a great book for talking about what consent is, what abuse looks like (quiet abuse—the most dangerous kind), and what a healthy relationship does and doesn’t look like. I would read this with a young person over a lot of other books because it is THAT full of conversation potential. Plus, ya know, Blair just qualified for the Iditarod this week, so she’s a badass.
dark
funny
hopeful
informative
sad
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
I expected this book to be more about surviving nature, not surviving other humans... It took me a bit of time to get into it but I really liked the way the book was structured. So many great characters and it painted a really insightful picture of Blair Braverman's life to this point. Interested to read more from her!
Hvor er Blair? - made me cry!
Hvor er Blair? - made me cry!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence
A vulnerable account of the author's search for identity and belonging, "Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube" draws readers up close to Blair Braverman's experiences in both Norway and Alaska as a high school exchange student, a beginning musher, and a young woman in places dominated by men. Braverman doesn't shy away from sharing the discomfort, sexual assault, and date rape she experienced, but she writes of these things in a tasteful, honest way that is appropriately shocking, uncomfortable, and in places angering to the reader. And while her account raises questions about sexism and misogyny, she doesn't paint a broad brush over men as she'd experienced one being painted over women. Her writing reveals an understanding that the opposite sex is as complex her own and can't be simplified to two tone portraits. As I read, I came to love the people she loved and found myself tearing up toward the end, sad not only that she was leaving them behind in the narrative, but also that I would have to leave them, too, when I turned the last page.
An extraordinarily genuine memoir, full of trials and realistic human relationships. Some people are terrible and some people aren't, nobody is surprised to learn that. Couldn't put it down.
Beautifully written. It made me question every interaction I've ever had with a woman. This book had helped me on my path to becoming a more thoughtful, considerate person.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced