This is a story perfectly told. The narrative voice of Icy as a young girl vibrates with truth and honesty. She somehow manages to tell her very painful story without indulging in a moment of self pity; however, the hurt she feels at being shunned for being different is present in every breath she breathes and every word she speaks.

Being “different” wasn’t tolerated in the hills of rural Kentucky in the 1950s. This intelligent and sensitive child's bewilderment about what she was feeling--her undiagnosed “disorder” and her fear of public embarrassment by uncontrollable outbursts--was heartbreaking.

Experiencing Tourette’s Syndrome from the inside through Icy’s frank reporting of how the urges to jerk or shout obscenities bubbled up and took over her 10-year-old body was simply chilling.

I thought the story was a fascinating piece of work.

Hill kid in 50s Kentucky with Tourette's syndrome. Gotta figure this will have some lessons in it somewhere! Is that a twitch or just a southern church service?? :-)

LAME. VERY LAME.

"Yessir, I was about to get wilder than a March hare in mating season."—page 182

'Icy Sparks' is such a terrific name. For a person and for a novel. Too bad the story of the novel, ICY SPARKS, by Gwyn Hyman Rubio, is so terribly lame, and its vapidity compounded by a touch of the distastefully crude.

Recommendation: I regret wasting my time. Surely you deserve better.

"You've made your blister." ... "Now sit on it."—page 240

Adobe Digital ( ePub) Edition, 300 pages

I did not like this as well as I thought I should have. The characters are interesting and complete people both the bad and the good. The story is involving. Perhaps it is because I didn't really like Icy and that left me feeling ambivalent about it.

3.5 STARS

"Icy Sparks is the sad, funny and transcendent tale of a young girl growing up in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky during the 1950’s. Gwyn Hyman Rubio’s beautifully written first novel revolves around Icy Sparks, an unforgettable heroine in the tradition of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird or Will Treed in Cold Sassy Tree. At the age of ten, Icy, a bright, curious child orphaned as a baby but raised by adoring grandparents, begins to have strange experiences. Try as she might, her "secrets"—verbal croaks, groans, and physical spasms—keep afflicting her. As an adult, she will find out she has Tourette’s Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder, but for years her behavior is the source of mystery, confusion, and deep humiliation.

Narrated by a grown up Icy, the book chronicles a difficult, but ultimately hilarious and heartwarming journey, from her first spasms to her self-acceptance as a young woman. Curious about life beyond the hills, talented, and energetic, Icy learns to cut through all barriers—physical, mental, and spiritual—in order to find community and acceptance." (From Amazon)

I enjoyed this novel as it did remind me of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. A very well-written book.

this book was just lovely.
it is about a girl called icy sparks.
she lives with her grand mother called  matanni and grand father called patanni.
her parents have passed away and she is an orphan.
it is based in rural kentucky in the 1950s.
it is the summer of 1956 when the story is based.
she is then diagnosed with a mental disorder.
for this problem , she is put  in  a hospital.
she hates it over there and does not want to stay over there.
she wants to go back to her grand parents instead of staying over there.
then she finds comfort in meeting a person called miss emily.
her full name is emily tanner.
she gives her books to read and note books to write on.
she is finally sent home to her grand parents which she wanted to do so badly.
miss emily teaches her different things and gives her more books to read about growing up and about life and icy sparks becomes very close to miss emily.
she had been writing to her grand parents and about how much she missed them and wanted to meet them.
she got  very angry and fought with the people at the hospital to let her go home but they tell her that she cant go home until they have found out that what is wrong with her.
the people at the hospital want to find out what the problem she has and to solve it.
she does not know what to do and feels very  bad and just wants to go home.
she then starts going to the church and singing over there.
then time passes and she grows up.
she is then 21 years old and she is diagnosed with tourette syndrome.
that is how the story ends.
the ending was lovely.
this book was just brilliant.
and i loved it.

Set in rural Kentucky in the 1950's, Icy Sparks is soon orphaned and raised by her mother's parents. By the time that she starts school she is having to go into the ice house to have "fits." In this setting there are only a few people who reach out to connect with a young girl who is so different from others while the bulk of the population shuns her.
Icy's undiagnosed Tourette's Syndrome shapes her life in unpredictable ways. Rubio does a great job of putting the reader into the head of a young girl facing this mysterious disorder.

Book on CD performed by Kate Miller


From the book jacket: Rural Kentucky in the 1950s is not an easy place to grow up, and it’s especially hard for ten-year-old Icy Sparks, an orphan who lives with her grandparents. Life becomes even more difficult for Icy when violent tics and uncontrollable cursing begin – symptoms brought on by a troubling affliction that goes undiagnosed until her adulthood.

My reactions
We know much more about Tourette’s Syndrome today than during the timeframe of this story, and I hope even the residents of rural Appalachia would be more compassionate about a young girl so afflicted.

Icy Sparks jumps off the pages of this book straight into the reader’s heart. This is a child who is curious, intelligent, kind, loving, and who learns to stand up to bullies and fight for herself. She shows empathy and compassion in her dealings with others even when they ostracize and belittle her. I loved her friendship with Miss Emily, an obese woman who knows a thing or two about being friendless and lonely. I wanted to throttle the teacher who so obviously hated this child. I was glad that the principal showed more genuine caring for Icy and that he made efforts to help and encourage her. And I can’t say enough bad things about the hospital worker who delighted in inflicting pain (physical and mental) on the vulnerable patients in her charge. As distressing as that episode was for Icy, it helped define the woman she would become.

Kate Miller does an excellent job narrating the audiobook. She brought these characters to life, and I really loved how she interpreted Icy.

Setting and characters were relatable, as someone who grew up in rural GA. Story kept my attention but was a bit disappointed in some aspects of the ending.

What a dissappointing read. It has all the makings of a unique and captivating novel - an orphaned young girl in rural Kentucky growing up in the 1950's begins to develop strange mannerisms and vocalizations which she attempts to manage through willpower and some semblance of order within her life. Little does she realize at the age of merely ten that she has developed Tourette's Syndrome, a neurologic disorder which is misunderstood and unrecognizable by her community as an actual medical condition. Of course Icy (the main character's name) is ridiculed, shunned, and tormented as a result of her behavior and the reader follows along as a bystander, witnessing the suffering she has to endure as a result of her condition. Most descriptions of the novel describe how it is not until adulthood Icy discovers her behavior has a diagnosis, as if she then experienes enlightenment that changes her life for the better. However, it is merely on the last two pages that this is conveyed - the majority of the novel focuses on Icy's life for about five years and goes to great length to describe her torment, confusion, and fustrations. While author Rubio probably accurately conveys the diction and slang of rural Kentucky at that point in time, this became more and more of a distraction and annoyance as the novel progresses. As a reader I never empathsized nor related to the character of Icy, did not find her journey to be all that interesting, and was overall dissapppointed in the novel's final third where things appear to be conveniently tied off in a nice bow under the guise of being born-again. Would not recommend it and find it flabergasting that this novel made the Oprah's Book Club reading list.

I enjoyed this book about a quirky, unique and odd little girl who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome in the 1950s before anyone understood what it was. That is, until the last 25 pages. Up until that point I would give the book 4 stars. But the ending felt force and rushed, and the religiosity felt judgmental and negative. I hated it. I live near a religious "college" that teaches faith healing. They actually believe that they can heal anyone of anything through prayer, and will grab hold of me when they see me in public and pray on me without asking whether I want to be touched or prayed for. It is an arrogant view of prayer: "I am holier than you and my prayers have more weight than yours." This is what the ending of the book felt like. Ugh. That ending spoiled the entire book for me. I was no longer charmed. I just felt manipulated.

I can't say I really enjoyed reading this book. But that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the book and the meaning of Icy's story. Sometimes I feel like it just tried too hard to paint the picture, and Icy herself was frequently not the most sympathetic character for me. In the end, I loved her epilogue, but I also felt like there was a "message" to the whole thing. Not sure I would recommend this, but I'd love to hear your thoughts if you choose to read it.