The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street
By Susan Jane GilmanPublished: Grand Central Publishing, 2016
Pages: 518
Genre: Contemporary, Historical Fiction
Check it out on Amazon
Everybody thinks that once you reach the top, you can lie back on a divan with a goddamn mai tai. No. Wrong. Success is not a mountain climb. Success is a treadmill.
Malk Treynovsky is a young child who travels to America in 1913 with her family but tragically becomes crippled then abandoned by her parents. Taking pity on her, a man who owns an ice cream business takes her in and Malk, utilizing her creative intelligence and the knowledge she gleans from childhood, builds an ice cream empire. Spanning over 80 years, she chronicles her metamorphosis into Lillian Dunkle and her struggles as a crippled woman in an unforgiving age.
I enjoyed this novel. Lillian is a very lively character; her sassiness and bluntness really jumped out at me. It was easy to be really sympathetic to her at times while at others to dislike her. Yet, I can understand why she made some of her bad, sometimes cruel decisions. I liked how Lillian's story came together, how the present was inserted at just the right times. Overall, I felt like it was a well-written book. The only complaint I have is that at certain parts, I felt like Gilman overused "darlings." I stopped reading and though to myself, "Jeeze, I think that's enough already," because it was used too often in those parts. However, at other portions of the novel, I believe her phrase made Lillian stand out. I recommend "The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street" to those who want an enjoyable summer read.
RATING (out of five puppies):
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