The Year of Ice: A Novel (Alex Awards (Awards)) (ISBN 0312289480)

One of the best novels I've read! And, I've read a LOT of them.:
Brian Malloy tells his story with simple words but memorable, wholly fleshed-out characters. He puts us inside the mind of Kevin Doyle, a 17-year-old Irish boy in Minnesota in the 1970's, who is gearing up for his eighteenth birthday and adulthood. In reading this story, I learned not only about Kevin's struggles to cope with late adolescence, but also about myself, as the story forced me to look back and re-examine my own late teen years. I'm a 23-year-old young black man in Georgia who is reading this, so that should tell you something about the story's universality. However, don't get the impression that it's a typical coming of age novel. It's hardly anything like the other books that have been put out there. Apart from both being gay and both having been teenagers, I guess you could say on the surface-level that Kevin and I don't have that much in common. But, though our lives may have been lived quite differently, with different types of drama, I still see myself in this story. Malloy's talent is that he writes the way a 17-year-old boy would actually think. In this way, he appeals to a broad audience. Malloy helps bring back youthful, vibrant memories of what it was like to once live at that age. Feelings of school daze and invincibility pour off the pages. Kevin, as we shall find, it just like any other teenager, only he's a little bit "different" in way that will soon be big and wild for him. But don't worry, the story doesn't center too much time around him being gay. The author does well in giving him a whole life apart from that. The novel's material is appropriate for any 17-year-old, but it can be read by older adults. I don't want to give away the plot, but I will say this... It is one of the best novels I've ever read. The characters seem real and not like their serving in token roles. The author surprises you with the turn of every page and you never know what to expect. There are times when I laughed, times when I cried, and times when I felt angry. Malloy has remarkable talent and thank him for writing this book and allowing me to have this experience. I'll definitely be getting a copy of his next book, whenever that comes out.

A real-male character.:
This book is one of the best gay novels I have read. The story tells of a gay high school students who dealing with the sexual frustration, being in the closet, a deceased mother, an irresponsible father, and more all within the mid 60's or 70's. I found the main character's insight to the story to be quite comical. Many times I burst into laughter from his aggressive/sarcastic thought process. I think that Brian Malloy has done an excellent job at creating the essence of a real boy (and I mean this gay or straight). The writing was excellent, an easy read, and quite enjoyable. This is a book that everyone should read once. I never got tired reading this book. I did not feel that this book had any cliché themes that many gay novels seem to possess. This story is very tangible.

Wonderful first novel:
Happy to see that Brian Malloy has a new book out, I had another run at "The Year of Ice," his first novel. I liked it as much on the second read. He has captured an authentic voice in the story--a gay 18-year old struggling to live a "normal" teenager's life, but finding it next to impossible with a psychotic father, eccentric aunt and assorted other characters that have staked out pieces of his heart and attention. This is one of the few gay coming of age stories that rings true in all ways, notwithstanding the dysfunctional relatives and friends that litter the protagonist's personal landscape. Desperately hoping to discover a roadmap for living that most young people--and particularly gay youth--long for and forced instead to ad hoc it, we leave him at the end of the book feeling that he will be one of life's winners despite all of the road hazards that have already been thrown in his way. Brian Malloy will have a distinguished career as a writer ahead of him if any of his subsequent stories match this first one.

Fairly slight.:
I thought this book was fairly slight. It is an interesting enough read but does not really leave any lasting impression. It is reasonably well written but again I did not think it was anything beyond average. I thought the character development was not particularly strong except for Aunt Nora, and sadly this character was not really explored or developed.

I love this book:
I really liked this book. There aren't many novels out there with a character like Kevin in them. He's the popular kid in school, but he's also secretly gay. Over the course of the year (the novel takes place from January 1978 to December 1978) a lot of things happen in Kevin's life. I won't really go into it, but I just want to say that Aunt Nora was my favorite character in the whole book. I liked the fact that the character of Kevin was so realistic. A lot of times novels focus on characters who are brave enough to step out into the world and start having new experiences. While Kevin has the drive to do that, he does not have the guts. I thought that was very true to life and my own experiences. The novel loses a star because it had an uninteresting start (in my opinion) but it did pick up pretty quickly so that wasn't a huge problem. Also, the book has ten chapters, but it's also divided into twelve months. Why not just have twelve chapters, one for each month? But that was a minor annoyance, since the novel was so good. Overall, a really solid novel with not only a very realistic main character, but also with a cast of realistic/three-dimensional supporting characters. Recommended.