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A review by kristinasshelves
My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi
3.0
2.5 stars.
I adored American Street by Ibi Zoboi, so I was excited to see my library had this title available on audio. Ebony is a 12 year old girl visiting her father in Harlem, after living a privileged life in Alabama with her mother and granddad for years. Ebony is very much a sci-fi nerd, which made me adore her and her constant Star Trek references. Ebony struggles to find her place in her new surroundings and quickly finds she no longer has anything in common with the children she once knew a lifetime ago. I enjoyed navigating 1980s Harlem through the eyes of a naive preteen and Zoboi's writing is well done, as I've come to expect. However, there was something about this book that irked me. Ebony comes across as pretentious and very judgement of everyone she encounters, referring to the local youth as "nefarious minions" constantly. This seems to be an attitude adopted from her mother, but that is only briefly touched upon. Ebony is a bright, passionate girl but she reads very immature for her age, overusing the phrase "imagination location" about every minute (to be fair, this may have bothered me more with the audiobook). Ebony reacts to her surroundings by continually making up space exploration scenarios, in which she is part of a spacecraft crew, which seems like something a younger child would do as a coping mechanism. Ebony's peers seem to be more grounded and act age appropriate. I enjoy middle grade books and wish this was as much of a hit for me as the author's other works have been.
I adored American Street by Ibi Zoboi, so I was excited to see my library had this title available on audio. Ebony is a 12 year old girl visiting her father in Harlem, after living a privileged life in Alabama with her mother and granddad for years. Ebony is very much a sci-fi nerd, which made me adore her and her constant Star Trek references. Ebony struggles to find her place in her new surroundings and quickly finds she no longer has anything in common with the children she once knew a lifetime ago. I enjoyed navigating 1980s Harlem through the eyes of a naive preteen and Zoboi's writing is well done, as I've come to expect. However, there was something about this book that irked me. Ebony comes across as pretentious and very judgement of everyone she encounters, referring to the local youth as "nefarious minions" constantly. This seems to be an attitude adopted from her mother, but that is only briefly touched upon. Ebony is a bright, passionate girl but she reads very immature for her age, overusing the phrase "imagination location" about every minute (to be fair, this may have bothered me more with the audiobook). Ebony reacts to her surroundings by continually making up space exploration scenarios, in which she is part of a spacecraft crew, which seems like something a younger child would do as a coping mechanism. Ebony's peers seem to be more grounded and act age appropriate. I enjoy middle grade books and wish this was as much of a hit for me as the author's other works have been.