The Year of Ice

Malloy, Brian. The Year of Ice. St. Martin's Press, New York: 2003.

Annotation

A year is spent learning about a young man grow into his own adulthood as he battles with sexuality, family issues, and bringing new life into the world.

Nomination for Recommendation
For being Brian Malloy's first Novel, this novel does an exceptional job explaining Kevin's life as an eighteen year old. There is no one distinct climax that conquers the book. The novel's serendipity exposes issues after issue, but delivers continuous solutions until the very last page. Malloy does an excellent job explaining the scenery that Kevin grows up in, from mentioning key landmarks too correlating characters emotions with the current setting that the book is taking place in. The issues of sexuality and friendship that Kevin deals with are monumental for a person his age. It is happy, sad, and relieving to see how he pushes through it all. This book goes to show that even though you may think you have another person figured out: "People can still surprise you."

Genre: American Library Association Alex Award