Happened to really enjoy this book,ending was a bit weird,but touching.would recommend.

This book got some terrible reviews but I thought it was sweet and worth reading ❤️

Started slow
Engaging and riveting middle
The end, full of religious fervor, was a disconnect
Not for me

Unusual topic. An intelligent, sweet, poetic child in the 50's deals with the repetitive verbal and "croaks" mannerisms of Tourette's Syndrome. Icy lives an isolated, alienated, life in rural Kentucky. Her grandparents and an older, obese mentor, give Icy the positive outlook and support she needs to understand the world she lives in. It is said that a person only needs one adult to love us unconditionally and we can develop the resilience to overcome adversity. Great read.

What do unripe crab apples, golden hair, golden ocher eyes, and croaking have in common? They are Icy Sparks. Her grandparents told her that her mother ate too many unripe, green crab apples while she was pregnant so Icy turned out all yellow. Not only is she all yellow, she is different. First of all, she lives with her grandparents because her parents died soon after she was born. Second, Icy has urges she can't control. Sometimes she gets so filled up with rage she has to let it out by croaking, popping her eyes out, and jerking uncontrollably. As people begin to find out Icy’s secret, she becomes an outcast. No one understands her and no one wants to be near her for fear of catching her strangeness. The only friends she has are her grandparents, whom she calls Matanni and Patanni, and Miss Emily, the fattest woman in the county and a fellow outcast.

As Icy’s outbursts become worse, her grandparents send her to a mental institution. Icy’s experience at the institution doesn’t help her problem but she learns things about herself and others and she even makes a few friends. The novel comes to a close with Icy, several years later, explaining about her condition, Tourette Syndrome.

I was very interested throughout most of this book. I felt it was well-written, interesting, and a fast read. In fact, I very much enjoyed it until the last several pages. Icy was an independent girl who was full of spark (pun intended) and vigor. Also vim (although I’m not sure of which she has more, vim or vigor). **Spoiler Alert**At the very end of the novel she attends a church revival where people are throwing themselves around, speaking in tongues, all in the “name of the Lord”. Icy goes with the cynical view that is characteristic of her. However, as she watches all the people go crazy, she falls in line and begins to “feel God’s glory”. The rest of the book is many, many lines of bible spouting, religious talk, and Godly lyrics. I skimmed that last 10 pages or so. I just really felt that it was too easy. Icy was such a pistol, and to succumb to the bible babble so easily was just so out of character for her. I felt her entire spirit changed with just one revival.

As I said above, I enjoyed this novel up until the ending. It was at least a three-star book until those last several pages. Very disappointing.

I actually enjoyed this book before getting to the very strange and ill-fitting Jesus-freak bit at the end. I liked the way the author describes nature/mountains and the all around setting of the book. I also grew to love the main character, Icy, and enjoyed reading about how her perspective on her disorder changed and evolved throughout the years. However her character was sort of ruined for me in the end when she suddenly became extremely religious after having criticised the hypocrisy of the church all her life.

I found it extremely strange that in the end god was the answer to all of her problems. It didn't really fit with the rest of the book, and I found that the last couple pages of this book were badly written and the overall ending was very unsatisfying. I was totally on board for singing to be an outlet for Icy and a possible cure (not really of course, but maybe just something that helps ease the symptoms of her disorder), but the fact that she basically gave herself to Jesus made absolutely no sense for her character and just kind of threw me off.

I would still recommend reading Icy Sparks, as I did enjoy it most of the time, just please keep in mind that some of the depictions of mental illness/psych wards are very (!) painfully incorrect.

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.

2.5 stars. I generally don't write reviews of books, because I believe reading and one's opinion of any particular book is very personal matter. Feeling how you do about a story, free of anyone else's judgment or view, is a gift. I felt compelled to share a brief thought on this book, however, perhaps just to see if anyone else agrees with me. The story of Icy, finding her way while carrying the weight of a disability, transitioning (not at all cohesively) to the book's last 20-30 pages, describing her spiritual awakening of finding Jesus, is one of the most disjointed things I've ever read. It was a disappointment at the end. Until the last 30 pages, I would have likely rated the book 4 stars.

When I started this book, it was a little slow. I got into it after a few chapters, and then I really enjoyed it...until the last third of it or so. I was hoping they’d dive a little more into her disorder, but instead they dove into the church nonsense. It was so annoying and preachy that I ended up skipping PAGES, not even skimming them. It wasn’t what I was hoping for and if I wanted to read that much about goofy people wailing and dancing to Jesus, I would have read some fanatic christian book. And then the epilogue was two pages of nothing really. Just noting that she was diagnosed and had gone to college. Nothing about her treatment or anything like that. I was left very unfulfilled and was very glad when it ended. I gave it two stars instead of one because I did like a little of the book. I have others issues with it, but since this book was written LITERALLY 20 years ago, I’m sure my opinion doesn’t matter. Haha

It wants to be good - so, so badly - I wanted it to be good, so badly! But it’s just not. Lackluster prose and empty, even silly characters, relationships and dialogue. A cold, do-nothing arc (if one can even call it that) ending in a dull and unfulfilling finale.

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.

This was my Oprah Book Club summer read and my Vaca read this year. And it was everything I hoped it would be.

I feel as though I don't know what original insight I can offer, given that this novel has over one thousand written reviews. I can tell you that it's an honest, human story with an uplifting message of perseverance, compassion, and the transformative power of love at its core.

The cast of this story is endearingly warm. Icy herself captured my heart immediately and I felt that her innate goodness contributed to the sympathy I felt for her throughout her struggle. This is not a character that makes the story difficult to read due to their dysfunction or unlikeability; this is someone you want to root for. Her friendships, her ties to her family, and her courage in getting involved in the broken lives she witnesses make this an inspiring, pick-you-u-when-you're-feeling-down read.

Oprah did right by this one.