author: Alice Hoffman
title: The Ice Queen
pages: 211
first line: 'Be careful what you wish for.'
rated: 5 out of 5
'Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back. They bruise and bake and come back to haunt you.'
This book grabbed me from page one. I took it randomly off the shelf at the library, it's the first Alice Hoffman book i've read.
It starts off with an 8 year old girl who lives with her mother and older brother, it is January and thier house is cold, the heat is off, they are poor. The mom is going out with her two friends to celebrate her 30th birthday and the daughter begs her not to go. The mom goes anyway, and the little girl makes a wish to 'never see her mother again'. The mom dies that night in a car accident. The girl always blames herself for the accident. She and her brother go to live with their grandmother in New Jersey.
As an adult, the brother, Ned, eventually moves out and ends up becoming a teacher and marrying one as well. The girl winds up becoming a librarian and lives with her grandmother until her grandma's death. Being left alone now, the girl moves to Florida, where Ned lives. She is a loner, works at the library and has no outside life other than that.
One day while talking to Ned, she wishes out lout to be struck my lightning....soon after, she is.
I found this aspect of the story to be odd and fascinating. She is struck by lightning while at home. It almost kills her, but she survives, and is really sick, the equivalent of having radiation poisoning. She loses her hair, cannot eat, hears a 'clicking' sound in her head and becomes color blind to the color red.
The woman in this story always believes that if she makes a wish, it will come true. So much tragedy has happened in her life this way, by making wishes.
She considers herself an 'ice queen', so no one can touch her, she has a heart made of ice.
'I knew the power of a single wish, after all. Invisible and inevitable in its effect, like a butterfly that beats its wings in one corner of the globe and with that single action changes the weather halfway across the world. Chaos theory, my brother had informed me, was based on the mathematical theorem that suggests that the tiniest change affects everything, no matter how distant, including the weather. My brother could call it whatever he wanted to; it was just fate to me.'
She winds up going to a support group for lightning strike victims and hears about a young man who was struck, then died for over 40 minutes, only to come back to life.
She decides to go meet him, he is a recluse.
His nickname is 'Lazarus'. She also makes a friend at the group, a youn guy named Renny.
I won't give anymore details on the story, exept that it is fascinating.
I liked the main character, whose name is never given.
I liked her brother Ned alot, and her relationship with him, especially in the end of the story. Her close friend Renny is another character that is well written and likeable.
I loved Lazarus' character, being struck by lightning leaves him literally 'hot to the touch', it burns to touch him, and he is telekenetic.
Alice Hoffman writes beautifully, and at so many times during this book, I would go back and re-read a certain passage...just because it was so well written. I recommend this book and will be buying my own copy to add to my collection.
visit the author's website: http://www.alicehoffman.com/
also reviewed by: mariel
