Review of Ice by Anna Kavan

*Ice* by Anna Kavan (2025). Published by Pushkin Press.

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

I’ve been dubbing this period as funemployment while I look for a job, but the job market isn’t looking too great right now. Regardless, I spend a lot of time in my local library, and because I am such a big fan of simple living, I enjoy the little moments where I can find a book for free here or there, while also supporting such a critical aspect of my community.

While I do love a good book from the library, being funemployed has led to another new discovery: I can finally catch up on all of the advance copies I receive! In the past I found myself inundated with advance copies, which led me to realize I need to be a bit more picky and choosy about what kinds of ARCs I was inviting into my life.

I decided to tackle my list of advance copies during this period, and I managed to get through a good portion of them! I tend to blog about most of the books I receive, if not all (I can’t recall any that I haven’t reviewed lately, but that could be my memory failing me here), as I want to put out what I thought about these books before I forget I even read them (hence why I started this blog to begin with).

Today’s blog post is dedicated to Ice, which is a book I had no idea existed until I found it on NetGalley, thought the synopsis was really interesting, and decided to pick it up and give it a chance. Going outside of the box is something I’ve been very into lately, as I know my taste and want to go outside of it as much as possible to diversify the kinds of books I’m reading.

This book is only 158 pages, so it’s a fairly quick read. For me, as a fast reader, that takes only about an hour to finish, to I read all of it in one go. Let’s get into the review!

As ice consumes the world, a man chases after a woman he once loved—but she doesn’t want to be found.

Some quick history on this book before we begin: the author, Anna Kavan, was a writer who lived fairly in obscurity throughout her career and life. Ice is actually the last piece she ever published, and it was actually the work that would gain her wider recognition as a writer and literary citizen.

That said, this is a science fiction novel at its heart, but tends to slip into different genres throughout its pages. It takes place on a planet where the ice is slowly creeping in on everyone who lives there, and a good chunk of the novel is trying to outrun the ice as it approaches. As we all know, though, it’s difficult to outrun nature, whether it’s a tornado or ice.

Regardless, our narrator remains unnamed throughout the course of the novel. Throughout the book his main objective is he’s chasing after a woman, also unnamed, before the ice gets them. However, it becomes abundantly clear early on that she might not want to be found by him, as she keeps running, too.

It’s a bit of an obsession our protagonist has with this woman, but we don’t know if it’s actually love—or, at least, that was the sense I began to get. Obsession and love tend to be very different concepts for me as a person and a reader, and while he might be portraying more innocent intentions, I got a sinister undertone from his actions and decisions.

Our narrator is also someone who we might call an unreliable narrator. The novel is told in fragments and doesn’t really have a coherent plot connecting it all together, which might be interpreted as a lot of the events in the novel might not actually be appearing as they seem (or in the way he narrates it to us).

There’s also someone else who wants the woman for himself: a man known only as The Warden. The Warden tells the narrator that he can’t see the girl, that he won’t letter, which leads us down a different path. We get some hints of a potential war being the cause of the ice to happen, and that this is actually what might be what the nuclear apocalypse looks like.

As all of this is happening as the main storyline, we have to grapple with the impact of the environment on each of the character’s psyche. Our protagonist is definitely paranoid about the ice and what’s happening around him, which might contribute as to why he’s pretty much unreliable at this point. The average person might also lose some of their sanity at this point, too.

Overall Thoughts

I will have to say, this is one of those novels that forces you to reread and think about what exactly is on the page in front of you. I found myself going back to some passages here and there to try and decipher what I just read. It can be a bit of a tough read if you’re not used to that, but it took me right back to graduate school.

Regardless, I think this is an important novel. It’s more in the realm of science fiction, as I mentioned before, but it crosses into other genres in the way it presents the story and its themes. There are hints of dystopia fiction, and I would bet one could argue there are elements of surrealism as well.

Pick it up if you’re interested. It’s definitely in classic territory, although calling anything a classic is up for debate in the long run. But that’s a different conversation about who gets to decide what and when they get to decide it.

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