Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North

by Blair Braverman

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Genres

Publication

Ecco (2016), Edition: American First, 288 pages

Description

Biography & Autobiography. Sports & Recreations. Travel. Nonfiction. HTML: A rich and revelatory memoir of a young woman confronting her fears and finding home in the North. Blair Braverman fell in love with the North at an early age: By the time she was nineteen, she had left her home in California, moved to Norway to learn how to drive sled dogs, and worked as a tour guide on a glacier in Alaska. By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube charts Blair's endeavor to become a "tough girl"�??someone who courts danger in an attempt to become fearless. As she ventures into a ruthless arctic landscape, Blair faces down physical exhaustion�??being buried alive in an ice cave, and driving a dogsled across the tundra through a whiteout blizzard in order to avoid corrupt police�??and grapples with both love and violence as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man's land. Brilliantly original and bracingly honest, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of the journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiv… (more)

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Rating

½ (51 ratings; 3.7)

User reviews

LibraryThing member lisapeet

I'm not that big on personal journey/coming-of-age memoirs, but I liked how she framed her own story within the northern settings—Alaska, north Norway, and Wisconsin; glaciers, sled dogs, and grumpy old men. In particular, she didn't turn the grumpy old men into caricatures—they had their gruff

and charming aspects, but they were also dysfunctional, lonely, crude, and just plain strange, which I found much more effective. Braverman's passages about her dogs won me over as well—she loved them as well, perhaps better, than just about anyone else in the book. (Another winner on the DTDD™ balance sheet.) But mostly I enjoyed this for its unexpectedness, and the twists and turns in what could have otherwise been a conventional story. Besides the old men and sled dogs, I came away with oddly loving feelings for an old store full of antique junk, which is no small feat.

Also, let's be honest, it's August in New York City and anything with a lot of ice and negative temperatures warms (cools?) my heart right now.

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LibraryThing member dele2451

This book is at its best when Braverman is dogsledding or relaying her experiences in Arctic regions and/or becoming a musher.

LibraryThing member chelseaknits

Braverman paints such a vivid picture of a cold landscape and colder people (some of whom have a surprising core of warmth inside). This is what I love about memoir: This is not a person with whom I have much in common, living a life that would make me miserable, but she makes me interested in her

growth, satisfied in her stead.

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LibraryThing member mongoosenamedt

Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube was an interesting memoir but I felt it needed more sled dogs and far less men are terrible (thus leading to Braverman's intense insecurity to which the reader is subjected at very close quarters).

LibraryThing member jaggedhorizon

stark, realistic about being a woman in the North. Also poignant about finding your place in a placeless nation.

LibraryThing member ThomasPluck

a great read, an exciting memoir in Arctic Norway, sled-dogging on an Alaskan glacier, and coming of age and succeeding in a male dominated world.

LibraryThing member kristilabrie

Braverman's coming-of-age memoir is as raw, wild, and visceral as the Arctic. Great read.

LibraryThing member norabelle414

Blair Braverman has always felt drawn to the north and the cold and the snow. As a teenager she lived in Norway and had some bad experiences but she went back, even further north, and made the life that she was looking for.

Content warning for abuse and sexual assault.
I enjoyed Blair’s outlook on

life. She sees bad things that happen to her (cold weather survival, getting buried in snow, abuse from an authority figure, sexual assault) as just, things that happened, rather than signs that she is or is not on the right path. They’re not holding her back but they’re not particularly driving her either. I also really enjoy winter/cold, though not as much as she does, and in a world where I feel it’s always expected to love summer and heat Blair is, pun intended, a breath of fresh air.

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