Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kasai review

Ice Song by Kirsten Imani Kasai (Ice Song #1)

Egalley thanks to Random House


Synopsis from Goodreads
There are secrets beneath her skin.

Sorykah Minuit is a scholar, an engineer, and the sole woman aboard an ice-drilling submarine in the frozen land of the Sigue. What no one knows is that she is also a Trader: one who can switch genders suddenly, a rare corporeal deviance universally met with fascination and superstition and all too often punished by harassment or death.

Sorykah’s infant twins, Leander and Ayeda, have inherited their mother’s Trader genes. When a wealthy, reclusive madman known as the Collector abducts the babies to use in his dreadful experiments, Sorykah and her male alter-ego, Soryk, must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest to get them back. Complicating the dangerous journey is the fact that Sorykah and Soryk do not share memories: Each disorienting transformation is like awakening with a jolt from a deep and dreamless sleep.

The world through which the alternating lives of Sorykah and Soryk travel is both familiar and surreal. Environmental degradation and genetic mutation run amok; humans have been distorted into animals and animal bodies cloak a wild humanity. But it is also a world of unexpected beauty and wonder, where kindness and love endure amid the ruins. Alluring, intense, and gorgeously rendered, Ice Song is a remarkable debut by a fiercely original new writer.
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This book reads like a mad inventor's fairy-tale. I love crazy, but sometimes it was too much even for me. That's why I think I'm having difficulties describing what I feel about this book.


You've read the synopsis, right? A mad, mad world full of genetic mutations, hard work and extreme climates.


Sorykah is a Trader, a rare mutation with genetic make-up of two people. Her other half, Soryk has been suppressed all her life and only comes out for short spurs of time when Sorykah's body goes through too much stress. Sorykah doesn't remember what happens when she is male, Soryk doesn't know he is a Trader and blames what he can't remember on memory loss.


Sorykah has baby twins, who get kidnapped by an absolutely mad monstrous Collector of rare mutations, and the poor woman has to go through numerous trials and tribulations to save her babies. It's a classic fairy tale but from a very twisted angle.


I look back and all I can see is a slew of images imprinted on my brain after I finished this book...

Sorykah's dogs get eaten by a giant seal; Dunya, the dog-faced housekeeper of Collector's house keeps the children safe in her kitchen; Soryk falls in love with mutants' Queen who hides her people in the big trees of the forest; Sorykah goes to Collector's son, a sexual deviant who lives on an island where pleasure is the only ruler; Soryk cuts his little finger to use as a key to Collector's house; merged personality, mad battles, weird hazy conversations, torture and evil experiments....


Mad enough for you?


It's an undeniably unique and interesting book, it's gripping, frustrating and exhausting with plenty of fascinating secondary characters. Will I read book #2? I guess I will when I feel brave enough.

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Абсолютно безумное фэнтэзи, сильно написано визуально, мозг часто оказывается перенасыщен образами.


Синопсис прочитали? Сорика - Торговец в мире, насыщенном генетической мутацией. Её ДНК позволяет ей быть двумя совершенно разными людьми - мужчиной и женщиной. Сорика подавляет свою вторую часть всю свою жизнь, и только когда её тело проходит сквозь сильнейший стресс Сорик вырывается на свободу. Он не знает, что он - Торговец и думает, что страдает от потери памяти. Сорика тоже не помнит, что происходит пока находится в мужском теле.... 


Когда безумный Коллектор похищает младенцев-близняшек Сорики для генетических экспериментов, отчаявшаяся мать пойдёт на всё, чтобы их вернуть. Вся остальная книга - это описание нескончаемых приключений и мучений Сорики на её пути с огромным количеством второстепенных персонажей и повёрнутых диалогов...


Я, честно говоря, закончила книгу совершенно замученной, и не знаю, хватит ли у меня храбрости взяться за вторую. Посмотрим...

8/10