The Ice Queen: A Novel

I am always uplifted by Alice Hoffman's stories. This story continues the motif of resurrection from affliction into glory;'the glory of living and being present, embracing life life life regardless of whether the affliction is being struck by the loss of a parent, struck by lightening, struck by unrequited love. And, as always, a writer with extraordinary insight into human nature is a better psychoanalyst than most psychologistsOne thought , one wish, by a young girl, spewed in anger, in temporal congruence with the tragedy of her mothers death, causes her to shut down, make extraordinary effort to become the emotionally frozen ice queen. Of course it will take an extraordinary shock of high voltage electricity to melt the ice, give herself enough grace to heal herself and those also touched by tragedy. This story, as is Ms Hoffman's gift, mixes the mystical and magical with the mundane. One must truly be made of ice to not be moved by the final redemption

This is a fairy tale for grown-ups. And quite a tale it is with the suffering heroine, the monster with whom she falls in love, and a desperately unhappy life that happily turns around.As a little girl, our heroine said something almost every angry child utters at one time or another. But in this case, the meanspirited wish came true, causing the unnamed narrator to believe she could make bad things happen just by wishing it so. After living a solitary, loveless life with a heart that has turned to ice, her brother, Ned, essentially forces her to move from their family home in New Jersey to be near him in Florida. And then the seemingly impossible happens: She is struck by lightning. While the physical effects of the lightning strike are horrific, it gives her a new beginning as she embarks on a passionate love affair with another lightning strike survivor—a man who is so burning hot that his breath can make water boil. Can love make the ice queen's heart melt? Like her, he harbors secrets that are almost too terrible to speak aloud, but it is only when the strange and horrific secrets are revealed that they lose their power to hurt.Like all good fairy tales, there is a moral lesson that leads to a healing redemption and a bold transformation. Author Alice Hoffman, who is a genius at the tricky genre of magical realism, has created an imaginative, emotionally-searing story that is absolutely spellbinding. And the ending is perfect. (Well, it is a fairy tale!)Bonus: This is also a fascinating scientific primer on the physical and psychological effects of lightning strikes on human beings, as well as the basics of chaos theory.

Writing in the first person makes this piece feel very personal, a memoir, almost like a journal. My father always said it is the most difficult way to write... I think it is the best. The logic of the illogical. He died never finishing or seeing his written works published. He died from the idiocy of an greedy American Doctor that kept on giving him prescription for a mind altering drug called dyasapam. He continued to prescribe it to my Dad for over 12 years. The next doctor, to young to understand his idiocy, yanked my Dad him off the medicine, my Dad died 3 months later, in agony from the withdrawal. I miss him every day! This book made me cry. Is that a good thing? ...I am not sure.

It took me a long time to care about the characters. I liked them by the end but I wasn’t sure I was going to get there and I almost gave up. But Hoffman always has good characterization and a hint of paranormal with a kiss of fantasy. I like that, and I like that it’s all mixed up with a real and believable character and real and messy life.

This book has taught me that not all novels have to flow the way you want it to be extraordinary. The beauty of this story is that halfway through I wanted to throw it somewhere and not read it anymore because I didn't like the main character, but the truth of the matter is we're all like her in more ways than one if we tell the truth. She was whiny and narcissistic. She only worried about what she felt after she and her brother's mother died, she never once tried to become closer to her brother until he was dying. The main character was one of the most selfish depressing characters I've ever had the displeasure of seeing the world through their eyes. Most of the story was her beating herself down for things a lot of people do and don't think twice about because it's not a big deal, but with this woman she believed the world revolved around what she felt and thought and did (or didn't do). Towards the end was the only time did the story shift in tone and she lightened up and let the world shine it's light in a little. She didn't become perfect in the end, but she was better. It's like she'd been healed in a way. I was going to give this book review a four star rating, but then I thought about it and realized what a valuable lesson this story can be if you truly understand it. We lie, we fake emotion, we whine, we wallow in our misery, but when we become so self involved that we refuse to let other people in or share in their joys and sorrows, then we need to take a step back. This book is all about perspective. Even though Hoffman writes in such a beautiful poetic prose with situations that are beyond the imagination almost, I think she speaks from some of the realest human emotions. We are petty and fragile, but the important thing is try not to be and take care of others, get to know others, and learn to love while we're still on earth to do it.

Once again Hoffman has taken an unlikely situation and made it seem real. The main characters have been struck by lightning and, as is the case, some strange results occur that can be life changing. How these people interact with one another is both fascinating and true to how people interact in general.

Gift

Very eye-catching story, mainly if you like romantic love together with supernatural events. It is a sort of bitter-sweet book where you get to get involved with the characters' feelings.

This is a captivating modern fairytale about one woman's journey through tragedy and pain, towards truth, freedom and happiness. It opens with a little girl in a rage, standing on her porch making a terrible wish that her mother will die. When it comes true and she dies in a car accident that very night, the girl is consumed by an agonising pain and guilt that will haunt her into womanhood. To cope with everything she grows cold, burying herself in dark fairy stories and books on death, closing herself off from emotion and social contact even as she maintains her dependable image at the local library reference desk.Everything changes when she moves to Florida, where her brother is now a married meteorologist working at a university. One fateful day, she is struck by lightning as she stands by her window. Her heart is a shard of ice, her body ravaged and her vision altered so she sees only crystal white or dull grey in place of the colour red. Agreeing to participate in her brother's research on lightning survivors, she begins to understand herself in light of the others' stories. Renny has hands threaded with gold where the lightning branded him with his own jewellery. The Dragon, struck twice, can spit fire.And then she meets Lazarus Jones, a reclusive man who was struck by lightning and died for forty five minutes before inexplicably waking up in the morgue. He is her opposite, a man whose touch burns and whose breath is hot enough to set things on fire. Yet there is a spark of understanding between them and in their mutual need for human contact they begin a passionate and secretive love affair, the Ice Queen and the burning man. Thus, slowly, through their union and their gradual rehabilitation of mind and body, they find truth, peace and themselves. Finally the Ice Queen has thawed and can look outside of herself and her obsession with her past in time for a moving yet hopeful climax.Woven through with fairy stories, lightning myth and the chaos theory, this is a moving and compelling novel that is utterly unlike anything I have ever read before. It manages to be beautiful yet macabre, and the ideas are expressed in pure poetry. Although it occasionally veered into a kind of self-conscious disjointedness, I couldn't put it down and was thoroughly immersed in it from start to finish. Each of the characters are touched by magic, and Lazarus Jones is a particularly strong, sexy and brooding anti-hero for female readers! The book has gone straight to the top of my wish list and I think it will haunt me for a long time. I'll definitely be seeking out more Hoffman in the near future...

excellent book

I read the reviews for this book and couldn't wait to read it. I had just finished a really good series and was at a loss what to read next so anticipated The Ice Queen would fill a void for some stranger than life fiction fix.The Ice Queen is strange it was but did it quench my thirst? No it didn't. The book starts with a young girl wishing her mother dead, which duly happens. The book goes on to tell the tale of the same young girl growing into a troubled young adult with the terrible burden of her mothers death.As my childhood was filled with the tales of Brothers Grimm and my teens spent wallowing in murky tales and black humour i was looking forward to a fairy story for grown ups with a dark edge. The Ice Queen just made me blue.I found the telling of the story jaded and without a natural flow. Often maudlin and inward thinking i felt like the book was more about the author than the story. As if the author was inviting me, as the reader, into her personal version of the world, rather than opening the story up to swallow me in and ignite my imagination.This book just wasn't for me. Normally i would attempt another of the authors stories as there are so many good reviews out there for her style of writing but in this case, i think life is too short. Bleak & disjointed.