Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube

Originally posted on 3/17/19.

Author: Blair Braverman.

Genre: Memoir, adventure.

Page Number: 274.

First Line: "'I'm sick," said Marvin."

Any Triggers? Rape and sexual assault.

Summary: Ever since Blair was a young child, she knew that she belonged in the Great White North. This book chronicles her various adventures in Norway and Alaska which include learning how to drive sled dogs, working as a tour guide on a glacier, and fitting into a small Norwegian town.

My Thoughts: I didn't finish this. And I should probably admit to anyone reading this website that I routinely do not finish books. I have this system: at the halfway point of any book I'm reading I check in with myself and ask if I'm really connecting with the story. If the answer is no, I put it down (this is assuming I don't hate it within the first two chapters). I'm not saying that I think this book is terrible. Braverman is a competent writer and I can see why other people might enjoy this. It just wasn't working for me.

I mostly didn't like this book because it wasn't focused on the things that I wanted it to be. I picked up this book because I heard that it was about dog sledding. I was excited to read about an epic dog sledding race where she would overcome hardships and isolation, and bond with adorable huskies. Basically, I was expecting the cold version of Tracks by Robyn Davidson. And sure, dog sledding is a part of this book, but that's not really where the bulk of Braverman's attention is. A lot of the book centers on her nothing life in a rural town in Norway. I know that sounds really mean, and I'm sorry but I thought these parts were boring and it comprises most of the book. Maybe I'm too much of a city mouse to really appreciate these parts of the memoir.

Also, there's a lot of creepy men in this and that was a relentless downer. I'm not going to spend too much time describing what happens in the book here, but the number of times I mentally sighed and muttered, "Seriously, fuck men," was getting out of hand.

There was a time where I loved introspective-memoirs-by-women-traveling-the-world books, and thanks to the financial success of Eat, Pray Love there is enough of those to be a genre all on their own. But recently, they've started to feel either stale or generic to me. Am I just over this genre now that I'm in the middle of a long-term trip myself? Possibly.