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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
I did not anticipate this being a 5* read but I also did not anticipate being as utterly moved and punched in the gut and enthralled by this book either.
I have a particular love of "women in unforgiving landscapes" lit, and obviously this book has all that in spades. It is also a book about gendered violence and gaslighting and bullying and fear, and you don't need to have been stuck on a glacier to relate to that.
I have a particular love of "women in unforgiving landscapes" lit, and obviously this book has all that in spades. It is also a book about gendered violence and gaslighting and bullying and fear, and you don't need to have been stuck on a glacier to relate to that.
Mixed feelings about this book. It's not what I expected, but whose fault is that? When I read about the author's skill at conditioning a sled dog to be a chicken shepherd, I started following her tale on Twitter. I was expecting this to be a book about her life with dogs, but it was actually about her life with men, finding her way past her fear, and making peace with herself. Jumbling the chronology of her stories added a layer of frustration. There was no good reason to tell these stories out of order, so why do it? Is it an Iowa Writer's Workshop thing?
The emotions in this book are so saturating, so invasive, that I could not finish. It's well written - lyrical if not exact, punchy with resonating moments that anyone who has been dismissed, oggled, pursued against their wishes. If you are looking for a book about becoming, this one is for you. It was just too much for me.
I was hoping for more about dogs and cold weather survival - the book description is all about ice caves and sled dog police persuit escapaes - but the heart of this one is about a person spending her life undoing the damage done to her when she was young, being damaged again, healed again, damaged again in the pursuit of becoming what she wants to be.
I was hoping for more about dogs and cold weather survival - the book description is all about ice caves and sled dog police persuit escapaes - but the heart of this one is about a person spending her life undoing the damage done to her when she was young, being damaged again, healed again, damaged again in the pursuit of becoming what she wants to be.
adventurous
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
A memoir of the author’s time living in northern Norway near the arctic circle, and in Alaska, where 20 degrees fahrenheit is balmy weather. If you ever wanted to learn about dog sledding schools and the Scandinavian equivalent of Northern Exposure-like small towns filled with eccentric characters, this is a great read, but I tapped out at 50% because it was feeling repetitive. CW for sexual assault.
I adored this book. It is compelling and extraordinary but also familiar.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
I really enjoyed this thoughtfully written memoir. It had a great balance of bringing me into the fantasy of a life in the North and also the realities of the challenges of finding yourself when you are always on the move in search of a home. Braverman's writing style is direct and thoughtful. I liked the way she wove together different eras of her life and the connection between the opening chapter and final chapter was really well done. It focuses a lot on the experience of being a woman and how it is defined in male spaces, but I think it would be an engaging read to anyone thinking about their identity and presence.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism
That night, atop a glacier, we made an unusual camp: a cluster of tents, with the dogs staked in a ring around us. The dogs were not in a circle so they could fight off a bear. They were in a circle so that the bear, when it reached us, would already have a full stomach. (77)
The title of this book made for fabulous chatter when—and before—we discussed it in class: Do you have a Goddamn Ice Cube? we'd ask of somebody who might need to borrow a copy. Or Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Hotel, when we were discussing an unrelated piece that also took place in the cold.
Braverman describes a life spent chasing the cold, going to Norway again and again, and to Alaska because maybe this time, this time, she will find what she is looking for. Hers is not the Norway of clean streets and sleek blonde hair but rather one of the grittier north, where the people who become friends and then surrogate family drink coffee in a general store and complain when, twice a year, their coffee mugs are rinsed out. Hers is the Alaska of tourist guides, the Alaska that is breathtakingly beautiful but also a farce—not allowed to discipline the sled dogs in front of the tourists, unable to speak up against the boyfriend who treats her badly and forces her into things she is not comfortable with, wanting the cold but not this kind of cold.
But there's also this sort of thing, when Braverman goes off to folk school in Norway to learn to be in the cold, to drive and care for sled dogs: There were moments when I felt I would never learn enough, never be good or tough or confident enough to drive the dogs well. And there were many more moments, standing on the runners or sitting in the snow with huskies piling onto my lap, when I was gripped with an astonished joy, and could scarcely remember being happier (65). They're there, those moments, and as the book goes on and Braverman figures out what and who she wants, things start to click into place.
This isn't an adventure story in the most common of senses, and some of the more...aspiring-he-men...of our class were disappointed that there was not, for example, more drama and excitement with the sled dogs. But it feels so very fitting for the time, with both external action and internal wrestling, and it packs a punch. A cold one.
The title of this book made for fabulous chatter when—and before—we discussed it in class: Do you have a Goddamn Ice Cube? we'd ask of somebody who might need to borrow a copy. Or Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Hotel, when we were discussing an unrelated piece that also took place in the cold.
Braverman describes a life spent chasing the cold, going to Norway again and again, and to Alaska because maybe this time, this time, she will find what she is looking for. Hers is not the Norway of clean streets and sleek blonde hair but rather one of the grittier north, where the people who become friends and then surrogate family drink coffee in a general store and complain when, twice a year, their coffee mugs are rinsed out. Hers is the Alaska of tourist guides, the Alaska that is breathtakingly beautiful but also a farce—not allowed to discipline the sled dogs in front of the tourists, unable to speak up against the boyfriend who treats her badly and forces her into things she is not comfortable with, wanting the cold but not this kind of cold.
But there's also this sort of thing, when Braverman goes off to folk school in Norway to learn to be in the cold, to drive and care for sled dogs: There were moments when I felt I would never learn enough, never be good or tough or confident enough to drive the dogs well. And there were many more moments, standing on the runners or sitting in the snow with huskies piling onto my lap, when I was gripped with an astonished joy, and could scarcely remember being happier (65). They're there, those moments, and as the book goes on and Braverman figures out what and who she wants, things start to click into place.
This isn't an adventure story in the most common of senses, and some of the more...aspiring-he-men...of our class were disappointed that there was not, for example, more drama and excitement with the sled dogs. But it feels so very fitting for the time, with both external action and internal wrestling, and it packs a punch. A cold one.