Recommend Me is a weekly event hosted by Kate at The Neverending Shelf, in which participants pick one of their all time favorite reads to share. This could be a book that you read yesterday or years ago.
To play along, grab a favorite read and tell us about it. You can include your thoughts about the novel, its summary, your favorite memory related to the novel... the possibilities are limitless.
This week my pick is Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
As if growing up wasn't hard enough.... Set in the 1950s, Gwyn Hyman Rubio's Icy Sparks tells the touching story of young Icy Sparks, a teenage darling living in a small Kentucky town. Icy certainly doesn't have it easy -- her uncontrollable, unexplainable twitches, jerks, and spasms make her a pariah in her own backyard. In a complusively readable style, Icy tells her touching coming-of-age story: from her experiences at a children's asylum and her bouts of isolation to the remarkable friendship that changes her life forever. Icy Sparks is a beautifully rendered novel about an amazing girl with a tremendous gift who is forced to face the ignorance surrounding her misunderstood disease.
Thoughts--Mini Review
Icy Sparks is a young girl living in Eastern Kentucky with her grandparents in the 1950s. She doesn't get along well with her peers and suddenly starts having tics and twitchy issues- ones that at first Icy tries to hide by going down into the root cellar to let them all out. Finally she tells her friend, Emily Tanner, a local store owner who is also an outcast from society at 300 pounds. Pretty soon the neighbors and town folk start to notice Icy's odd behavior. Of course with the time setting of the story people's immediate thought...
CRAZY!!
At first the school puts her in a solitary classroom but even that doesn't magically cure the jerky tics and odd behavior. Her grandparents then have Icy admitted to a mental institution for observation. You'd think Icy might make some friends but even in the institution with real crazies, she is an outcast. When Icy finally goes home, she stays in her house and does not socialize. After her grandfather dies, Icy and her grandmother begin a journey that will change her life forever............
So for all you out there that love a story where a character overcomes great adversity from the perspective of a lonely misunderstood young teenager....this is for you. I instantly loved Icy, never once as a reader did I find her strange or unlovable.It seemed the more the town hated her, the more I grew to care for her. Icy's story is one of encouragement and shows people its ok to look past a disease to see the beauty that is underneath!!
Ooh the book looks good. I have enver heard of it until now. Nice pick!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard of this either, but it sounds like a wonderful book. I'm adding it to my list.
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