Reviews - Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North

421 reviews for:

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North

First #bookclub4m pick for our audiobook non-fiction month! I might try speeding up the narration for the next one because holy 9hrs batman (this is probably not very long for an audiobook - but be gentle with the neophyte) I very much enjoy this memoir - I love a good "youngster surviving in the wilderness" and Braverman adds so much more in her musings on the interactions between her and various men and fear.

suzannacaldwell's review against another edition

4.0

Whenever I start a book about Alaska I'm always worried that I'm going to be distracted by the details. It's hard to read about a place so close to you seen through the eyes of another person and not be highly critical. Sure, maybe I found myself nitpicking over a few details, but Blair Braverman does a fantastic job. The structure weaves back and forth between her time in Norway and Alaska and it's lovely to see her growth along the way.

The north is an unforgiving place and either it drives you away, kills you, or makes you stronger. Braverman does a great job recounting how it did the latter in a really charming, honest way. Even if I was a little distracted at times (who is Noah Daron, the Iditarod "finalist" -- that's not a thing -- she went to work for?) I really enjoyed this book.

kendelridge's review against another edition

5.0

Wish I could have read it in one sitting, the story lended itself to a one sitting. Reading it over 2 weeks I had a hard time tracking the story.

tui_reads's review against another edition

5.0

I LOVED this, highly recommended to people who like memoirs about the outdoors, girlhood, Norway, or feminism. Braverman's writing is lovely, lucid, restrained when it needs to be, poetic and lyrical in passages where it wants to be.

I bought this because I follow Blair on Twitter and because I wanted a gift for my keenly outdoorsy flatmate. I think she's going to love it. But I will say, don't go into this book expecting a lot of cute sled dog material; it's much, much more about Blair's life before and around sled dogs, and the humans she meets, and being a woman in extreme, lonely, sometimes vulnerable positions. And the cold.

arealcloud's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

kendallofavonlea's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective tense medium-paced

Content Warnings

alexpghayes's review against another edition

5.0

The most beautiful thing I've read in a long time. If you are searching for words for the North, or the cold, read this.

chart24's review against another edition

5.0

Blair Braverman brought me completely into her world, I was romanticizing her time in Norway and Alaska right along with her while also feeling the pain of her isolation. A truly unique story and a wonderful literary escape.