My name be Ice Cream Fifteen Star and this be the tale of how I bring the cure to all the Nighted States, save every poory children, short for life. Is how a city die for selfish love, and rise from this same smallness. Be how the new America begin, in wars against all hope - a country with no power in a world that hate its life. So been the faith I sworn, and it ain't evils in no world nor cruelties in no red hell can change the vally heart of Ice Cream Star. In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her people survive by scavenging in the detritus of an abandoned civilization. Theirs is a world of children - by the time they reach twenty, each of them will die from a disease they call posies. When her brother sickens, Ice Cream sets out on the trail of a cure, led by a stranger whose intentions remain unclear. It's a quest that will lead her to love and heartbreak, to captivity and to a nation's throne, and ultimately into a war that threatens to doom everyone she loves.
What an astonishing achievement...I can't remember when I last read something so original or sophisticated or emotionally engaging or so breathtakingly ambitious. -- KATE ATKINSON
Sandra Newman has created a language for Ice Cream Star that is unique, both broken down and rapturous, full of powerful feeling as well as laconic toughness, and flashing with gorgeous detail. This is a brilliantly plausible dystopia, a thrilling adventure and altogether an amazing book. -- ADAM FOULDS
Wonderfully inventive, The Country of Ice Cream Star pulls you into a world of betrayal, loyalty, desire and war. Ice Cream Star is a glorious, flawed heroine, and Newman's writing about sexuality - its threat, and its power - is astonishing. -- KAMILA SHAMSIE
Author
About Sandra Newman
Sandra Newman was born in America but also lived in England for 20 years. Her professions have ranged from academia to professional gambling. Her first novel, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Her second novel, Cake, was published in 2007, and her memoir, Changeling, in 2010. She co-wrote How NOT to Write a Novel, an irreverent how-to guide. In 2012 she wrote The Western Lit Survival Kit: How to Read the Classics Without Fear. She lives in New York.
