The Ice Queen

I always think I've read all the books by my favorite authors but every once in a while a book by Alice Hoffman or Anne Tyler or Mary Balogh shows up from their back catalog that I've never seen before. The Ice Queen is one of those books, and a lovely story it is.
The protagonist loves books, especially fairy tales (Grimm, not Andersen), so when her mother leaves for a party, this eight-year-old girl makes a wish and her mother dies in an accident. Later, the girl's grandmother is the recipient of another wish. As a young woman, our unnamed heroine makes a third wish and is struck by lightning.
These circumstances cause her to believe she is unworthy of love:
“At night I told myself a story, wordless, inside my head, one I liked far show more better than those in my books. The girl in my story was treated cruelly, by fate, by her family, even by the weather. Her feet bled from the stony paths; her hair was plucked from her head by blackbirds. She went from house to house, looking for refuge. Not a single neighbor answered his door, and so one day the girl gave up speaking. She lived on the side of a mountain where every day was snowy. She stood outside without a roof, without shelter; before long she was made of ice—her flesh, her bones, her blood. She looked like a diamond; it was possible to spy her from miles away. She was so beautiful now that everyone wanted her: people came to talk to her, but she wouldn’t answer. Birds lit on her shoulder; she didn’t bother to chase them away. She didn’t have to. If they took a single peck, their beaks would break in two. Nothing could hurt her anymore. After a while, she became invisible, queen of the ice. Silence was her language, and her heart had turned a perfect pale silver color. It was so hard nothing could shatter it. Not even stones.”
This is a dark story just like the Grimm fairy tales our heroine loves. It is also a story of opposites: life and death, ice and fire, dark and light, fairy tales and chaos theory. There's a lot of symbolism and touches of magic. But it's also a story of redemption and sibling love. I loved this book. It's definitely one to reread. show less

This was a strange little novel, but it was still quite an enjoyable read. Hoffman uses tropes and themes from classic fairytales to weave a story of a woman learning to know herself, incorporating elements from tales as starkly different as Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimms Brothers, and many that are part of the larger folkloric tradition. Our protagonist is not, in fact, the Ice Queen of the title, but her own lack of self-knowledge and of faith in the world around her leaves her with a distance from the world that is quite chilling. Our story begins as many fairytales do: with a wish made that has consequences that are unexpected and horrifying -- in this case, jealousy drives our narrator to wish her mother gone. Whether we show more believe as she does in the magic of wishes (those made in happiness or in haste), this single event propels the young girl to shut herself off from the world; if she cannot feel, then she cannot accidentally wish anyone harm (happiness seems out of the question), and she can quietly live her life in icy seclusion and neutrality. Yet, throughout the story, her passion rears its head from her strict control: she has a rather risky affair with a local police detective, she adopts pets even though she does not enjoy them, and her risks culminate in a third wish that sees her struck with lightning. As lightning does awaken a sense of primal energy (physically and metaphorically), she takes on a new life that even though it is mired with medical hardship sees her begin to acknowledge her loss of passion and eventually seek it out. Like many fairytales, we see her begin a stumbling and seemingly random journey that is less motive driven than arbitrary, but by the end of her so-called journey, pilgrimage, awakening (what you will) she winds up with a sense of stability and enlightenment. What that enlightenment is is inextricably mired with death and loss, and yet this ambiguous ending still leaves one with a sense of satisfaction - much like the seemingly random yet unavoidably interesting fairy and folktales. A strangely satisfying tale with vivid imagery, overall, even if we are left not quite knowing how to feel by the finale. show less

I listened to the audio format of THE ICE QUEEN, and once again Nancy Travis gave an amazing performance and captured the magic, passion, and sorrow of Alice Hoffman’s novel. THE ICE QUEEN is a dark fairy tale about a lonely librarian who learns the hard way to be careful what she wishes. Wishes do come true, but not always with the desired outcome. From the beginning, the story had a dreamlike quality that held me captive. Hoffman always delivers gorgeous imagery and stunning prose, and I think she outdid herself with this novel.

This is the fourth book I’ve read by Alice Hoffman, and it’s also the saddest. It started sad and got sadder, but such was the tale of a morose, lightning-struck librarian and her obsession, a man named show more Lazarus who cheated death. Had I not been listening to this while in the car with other people, I would have been a sobbing mess the last 30 minutes for sure. Even so, the ending left me hopeful, and I’m so glad I gave THE ICE QUEEN a listen. show less

Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things.

How's that for an opening?!

After losing her mother at the age of eight, the unnamed narrator decides she doesn't deserve much of a life. She builds a fortress between her and others, allows her heart to freeze solid, she merely exists. Until 30 years later, the day she's struck by lightening.

"Everyone has them. I mean one defining secret. The essence of a person. If you figure that out, you figure out the riddle of that particular human being."

The Ice Queen was my first time reading Alice Hoffman, and I'm kinda surprised at how fluffy this story was. For some reason I was expecting something darker. Or maybe it was the romance that made it feel show more fluffy? Sure, there were some heavy issues tackled (I even cried a teensy bit) but closing the book I was left with an overall feeling of warmth, of hope, which I admit was nice.

"This is what I know, the one and only thing. The best way to die is while you're living."

3.5 stars (I look forward to reading many more books by Hoffman.)

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"If Frances York had known what I was doing, I would have been fired on the spot. What people read revealed so much about them that she considered our card catalog a treasure house of privileged secrets; each card contained the map of an individual's soul."

"This would be the moment I would never let go of, even though it caused me the greatest pain. When I was old, when I couldn't walk or talk or see, I would still have this."

After finishing the book, I couldn't help feeling like the main character's story mirrored that of the fairy tale she liked least, "Godfather Death," and that her brother switched places with her because the way she was "living" wasn't really a life, and it seemed as if he saved her life by dying. show less

The Ice Queen is an unabashed fairy tale. Our protagonist is a librarian and a grown woman who made a terrible wish as a child and watched it come true has frozen her heart and locked it away ever since.

Another misguided wish sees her struck by lightning in her home and this is where the adventure begins for our nameless heroine. The lightning strike has started a slow thaw of her icy heart and soon she seeks out a secretive and cautious fellow survivor of lightning.

Lazarus, as the nurses called him, was struck dead but got up and walked out of the hospital without looking back. The librarian finds herself drawn to him like the living flame that he is... Able to burn her with only his touch.

Through their relationship she begins to show more allow the walls around her to crumble and to see beyond her desperate fear of allowing people in.

It's very straightforward allegory but written simply and quite beautifully. It focuses on the interconnectedness of human beings (and animals) and surrenders to the idea that, in the words of John Donne, no man is an island.

This is the maybe the fourth or fifth Alice Hoffman book that I've read and I'm always struck at how show less

This is the first time I've read one of Alice Hoffman's books, and it makes me want to read more. She has a wonderful way of weaving the extrordinary with ordinary. While not as overtly magical as the movie "Practical Magic" there is much that happens in this book that requires a certain suspension of disbelief -- but the story amply rewards the concession.

Why do some people live while others die? Can a little girl's selfish wish cause her mother's death? How do you make sense of surviving being struck by lightning, only to have the after-effects separate you from the rest of the living? Why do we turn to ice, how do we survive it, and how can we become living beings again? Hoffman's intelligent, isolated, unnamed narrator takes a show more quietly miraculous journey set against a backdrop of fairy tales. show less

The title has echoes of The Snow Queen which carry into the book, a novel very much coloured by the world of fairy tales. It begins with a badly timed wish which turns a young girl's world upside down, leaving her cold and with a shard of ice in her heart that defines her life well into adulthood. Struck by lightning she then comes into contact with the fire to her ice, a fellow survivor who opens her eyes and guides her on a journey to the truth. Sublime.