The Year of Ice

Terrific Plot Line, Great Characters, Brilliant Prose Tyle, Great Humour.

While Malloy is certainly a talented writer, I found myself not liking the main character at all. My distaste for him made me stop reading, because I didn't care about him or his story. The format is very much like a list of events that happen instead of a story, but it works (which is impressive). I felt like the story hadn't really started yet and there was too much fluff in the beginning. All in all, the writing was good... Read Full Review

Brian Malloy's sensitive debut novel provides enough jumping-off topics to keep any book club talking well into the night...a high school senior named Kevin out in Minnesota, it provides generous food for thought on all of the following: dealing with the death of a loved one amid comflicted feelings about the person; the difficulty of parents and children to ever really see one another for who they are; the loneliness experienced... Read Full Review

It's 1978, and Kevin and his father are still adrift after the death of Kevin's mother two years ago. Kevin's due to graduate from high school, and in the pecking order, Kevin's near the top, despite his grades, but he has a secret crush on one of his friends. As the year progresses a series of shattering secrets surface, and the bond between father and son becomes thinner, which isn't helped by Kevin's aunt who blames her... Read Full Review

So many books are typed as "coming of age" or "coming out" but neither of those terms does full justice to the voice and character that is 18 year old Kevin Doyle. You can almost hear him speaking the story to you as you read, and his wit, empathy and hope come through on every page. A book that is filled with the ache of what it means to be young in a world you do not understand, where you do not often know how you should... Read Full Review