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The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
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The Country of Ice Cream Star

Due to publisher restrictions, this audiobook is unavailable for purchase in your selected country.
Length 26 hours 33 minutes
Language English
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In the aftermath of a devastating plague, a fearless young heroine embarks on a dangerous and surprising journey to save her world in this brilliantly inventive thriller.

In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a strange disease they call Posies—a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.

When her brother begins showing signs of the disease, Ice Cream Star sets off on a bold journey to find this cure. Led by a stranger, a captured prisoner named Pasha who becomes her devoted protector and friend, Ice Cream Star plunges into the unknown, risking her freedom and ultimately her life. Traveling hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory, she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal, fighting to protect the only world she has ever known.

A postapocalyptic literary epic as imaginative as The Passage and as linguistically ambitious as Cloud Atlas, The Country of Ice Cream Star is a breathtaking work from a writer of rare and unconventional talent.

Sandra Newman is the author of The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, which was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. She is also the author of the novel Cake; the memoir, Changeling; How Not to Write a Novel, an irreverent how-to guide with Howard Mittelmark; and The Western Lit Survival Kit. She lives in New York.

Lisa Renee Pitts is an award-winning actress in theater, television, and film, as well as an accomplished audiobook narrator. She has been seen Off-Broadway, in Europe, and in regional theaters across the United States, performing leading roles in such prominent plays as A Raisin in the Sun, Doubt, Waiting for Lefty, Valley Song, and Our Town. Her television appearances include The Shield and Law and Order, and she played the recurring role of Allison Sawyer on the hit family drama Lincoln Heights for the ABC Family Channel. Lisa's audiobook titles include biographies, fiction, nonfiction and children's novels, including Pushkin and the Queen of Spades by Alice Randall, for which she won an AudioFile Earphones Award for excellence in narration. Other notable titles are Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, Better Than I Know Myself by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, and My Name Is Not Angelica by Scott O'Dell. Lisa is a graduate of Rutgers University, where she received her B.F.A. in Theater Arts. She lives in Burbank, California.

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Reviews

“What an astonishing achievement…I can’t remember when I last read something so original or sophisticated or emotionally engaging or so breathtakingly ambitious.”

The Country of Ice Cream Star is in many ways a classic story, craftily retold and made contemporary…[It] gradually builds toward a powerful, horrifying, and beautifully written climax, one that’s epic in scope but also feels intensely personal. It’s possible that this intrepid girl is the Frodo Baggins our times deserve.”

“Sandra Newman’s novel The Country of Ice Cream Star makes the Hunger Games seem wimpy.”

“Probably the next Divergent…The unique dialogue (there’s no adults to teach them proper English, after all) and quick pacing make it an engrossing, thrilling read.”

“Haunting and heartbreaking…This is an epic about love and hope that will inspire—and probably be screening at a movie theater near you in the next few years.”

“A treat, full of supple metaphors and rhythmic lyricism…This is an obvious candidate for Hunger Games–hungry Hollywood to pluck out the linguistic heart that makes it special. Take a look before that happens.”

“A brave new/old world that delivers on multiple levels, especially Ice Cream Star’s alluring language.”

“What sets The Country of Ice Cream Star apart from its rivals is the extraordinary, blistering insistence of its language…As the momentum builds, scene by assured scene, a raw, addictive lyricism develops…By the last page I was emotionally battered but euphoric: the book had held me so effectively hostage that I felt I had Stockholm syndrome.”

“[The novel’s voice is] a remarkable creation, an approximation of an English whose evolution failed to be nurtured past adolescence and then ossified with new rules and structure in place.”

“Stylish and accomplished.”

“As inventive as it is captivating.”

“Newman’s novel is ambitious, taking on race, sex, class, religion, politics, and war all at once. What sets the work apart is its unapologetic narrator, whose fantastically unbridled, wholly teenage point of view renders each page a pleasure to read.”

“A richly detailed dystopian epic…This suspenseful, provocative tale is The Hunger Games meets Lord of the Flies and The Walking Dead, only much, much better.”

“Narrator Lisa Renee Pitts narrates this post-apocalyptic novel with feeling…Listeners who can move past the dialect will find the story of children surviving at world’s end engaging as Pitts’s melodic voice, full of warm undertones, brings them closer to the emotional core of Ice Cream Star’s struggle for survival.”

“This literary dystopia inhabits a fully imagined, remarkably inventive universe with its own bizarre rituals and language…The patient reader will be intrigued by the poetic prose and captivated by the exploits of Ice Cream Star.”

“A bold, linguistically adventurous dystopia…A singular work of storytelling that manages to be historically and politically compelling in its view of a future haunted by disease and death. Yet Newman manages to imbue her heroine with a hope and resiliency that will surpass the ravages of a woebegone time.”

“Newman’s story is inventive, her characters memorable…praiseworthy for its solid efforts at world-building.”

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