Black Ice

Rating:
Summary: I Could Relate To An Extent
Review: An okay book that sort of bogs down as it goes on. I guess I got tired of the self-reflexion after awhile. I had gone to a racially mixed high school (not a boarding one, however), so I could relate to some of the author's experiences.

Rating:
Summary: I'm Soooooooo Confused!!!!!
Review: Black Ice was by far one of the most difficult and boring books I've ever read. I choose this book because it was and autobiography about a young African American girl and I thought in some way I could relate. First of all, the book starts off completely slow and it stays that way throughout the whole book. It doesn't have any parts that are interesting or keep your attention. One other thing I didn't like was the fact that the words she used were dull and hard to understand. There were too many characters and she jumped back and forth between them throughout the entire story, so you never know whom she's talking about or what their purpose is in the story. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under the age of 21 and I'd never read it again.

Rating:
Summary: in response to "it's one of the worst books i read this year
Review: I read this book after my freshman year at St. Paul's School, the same school the author bases her experience, and I have to say it is a great book. Though her experience was a considerable amount of years before me, I could relate to her words. I even meet Ms. Cary and she is a wonderful woman. If you want a book that will move you this is it.

Rating:
Summary: Dull and confusing...
Review: I recently finished reading the book Black Ice, and did not understand what the whole point of the book was. i also had to write a report on the book and you dont have any idea how many hours i spent and headaches I had trying to find some plot the story.
a definite "dont-read-unless-you-have-to" and a big disappointment.
I am a big reader, and I have found few books boring, but this book was a clear exception.

Rating:
Summary: in response to "it's one of the worst books i read this year
Review: I too had to read this book for school. Once, in the summer going into my freshman year, and again during my junior year. On both occassions, I found that this was a delightful book. The word choices are quite appropriate, and if the words are too big for your vocabulary, then read with a dictionary. I thought that this was a poignant memoir about the early days of integration. As a reader--amazingly, as a white reader--I was very empathtic to the challenges that Ms. Cary overcame. If after all you came away with after reading this book is that it was boring and inconsequential, read it again. Reading for school may not be on the top of my list for fun things to do, but if you forget you're doing homework and yourself to enter the atmosphere of the book, then there is no way you cannot enjoy it. Black Ice is a very powerful and moving book. In recounting her own adolsence, Cary helps people in their teen years make sense of all that is happening to them. She also allows others who have left those years, to remember their own adolescence. There is much to be gained from reading this book, and nothing to lose. I guess if you are a thoughtless person, who does not want to know the history of this country, then this book is not for you. But if you have a compassionate bone in your body, you will learn and grow from this amazing book.

Rating:
Summary: One of those books that you want to read over and over again
Review: I've read Black Ice atleast 7 times in the past 2 years because with each reading I continue to understand how my experiences at a predominantly white high school have shaped the person I have become. I can not remember the exact phrasing, but there is one passage in Black Ice that sums up how I feel about my high school experience. It goes something like this: If I had left St. Paul's School the same person who went there, there would have been no use in going. In other words, accept that you will be changed when you live through the alienation and self-inflicted loneliness of integrating schools in the Post-Jim Crow, Post Civil Rights Movement era. I wish that I would have read this book while I was still in high school. I would be able to better articulate to my friends and family what I was experiencing.

I've been wondering if the title has anything to do with the lake that Lorene visited in the story when she took the time to think about her life one night. Or maybe it is a visual reference to her heart, dark and cold because she, in her own words, had not loved enough during her teen-age years. Perhaps, it is a reference to the black ice on the roads that you have to watch out for in the winter...

Rating:
Summary: Black Ice--No Dice
Review: This is a memoir by one of the first black female students at an elite prep school in New Hampshire, in the early 70's. The biggest psychological issue that come clearest through in this book, is the author's feelings of severe insecurity about operating in this rich white academic environment. She was ambitious to outshine everybody, of whatever race at the school and she ended up a neurotic mess, full of deep dissapointment that she did not. The author makes her deep confusion clear as she struggled with guilt about wheather she was betraying her working class black background to partake in the immense luxuries provided by the school. All the while so many hardworking working class people, like those she knew growing up, were deprived of that which the rich white snobs at the school took for granted. She seems to feel longer guilty about all this; she's proud of who she is and what she's gone through. Also of interest is her apparent deep fear of her white classmates, even though she developed many friendships.

One gets the impression that the author may not, when she published this book, have completely resolved her feelings.

For the most part, this is a well-told story (except towards the end). I particularly liked the contrast between her artistocratic life at St. Paul and her life when she came back to her working class home for the summer before senior year and worked at the Dinner. There she met Booker, the pot-smoking, tough-guy head cook and reveals him to be a tragic figure.