Black Ice is a badly written memoir. Though I am an avid reader, I found myself struggling to get through this work. Not only does it lack insight into her situation, Cary consistently practiced poor word choice in her writing, leaving the reader wondering what her intention was. I also question Cary's editors at Vintage Books--why did they allow her to leave in page after page of lackluster prose describing the minutia of her life? (i.e., pp.60-61 in which Cary describes dropping her soap) I am shocked that reviewer Arnold Rampersad and the Washington Post Book World placed Cary in the same league as Maya Angelou and Richard Wright. Having recently read Ron Suskind's Hope in the Unseen which was a fabulous nonfiction book about a young African American's struggle to fit into life at Brown University, I was disappointed that this coming-of-age offered such little insight into Cary's inner world.

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.

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...

Unfortunately I found this book quite boring and untrue to the claim that it focused on pre-Civil War Philadelphia. Less than half of the book was actually set in the city. When the protagonist went on her speech tour near the end of the story, I honestly could not keep my eyes open to read the words. All of the historical backround seemed forced. Looking back, I don't even know where the climax of the book is (if there is one.)The only redeeming part of the story is the ending, which takes way to much time and energy to reach. Overall, this book was an exreme disappointment.

This book had me hooked by the 10th page. Knowing that this is based on a true story makes it really pop out. This is a story everybody should read. Open your eyes and join a new world.

With her novelization of the life of a freewoman who made the terrible choice to leave one of her children behind in claiming freedom for herself and two other children, Lorene Cary takes us into a vivid land of history and humanity in pre-war Philadelphia. As a modern novel, Price is not only accessible, it provides engaging characters and a resonant story.

First and foremost, Price is the tale of Virginia (Ginnie), now named Mercer Gray, and her transition from slavery to vigilant freedom. Cary takes Mercer through a very human path, with attempts to reconcile her desires for freedom, self-sufficiency and some kind of comfort or security, with the costs of that freedom and her duty to both those that have helped her and the price that she paid for her freedom. The Quick family, a multigenerational mesh of survivors and hangers on, gives a rich field for Mercer to grow in.

Price stands as complement to the slavery-era narratives from which it draws. Written in a more modern English, and with the liberty to have been crafted for drama as well as truth, Price could very easily serve as an introduction to a genre of historical literature that can be daunting for both its content and language. Cary also has the liberty to go further into the awkward or accusatory truths that free black people of the era may have often self-censored for fear of alienating their supporters.

Chosen as the key book for the One Book, One Philadelphia project, Cary's work has the kind of Easter Eggs familiar to those who personally know where a book is set. Cary's early years and childhood in Philadelphia, and current residence here, provide another tie for the city to give back some Love.

Overall an excellent book.

When my book club selected Pride, I had never read anything by Cary. I will definitely buy Black Ice.

Pride reads more like classical literature rather than a novel. I think this is the problem a lot of the readers are having - it's not a harlequin romance.

I disagree with readers who say that the conflict between Roz and Tam was never resolved. Roz forgave her husband and terminated contact with her friend. While it would have been more dramatic for Roz to throw her husband out, it is unrealistic expectation of a politicians wife (witness Hillary Clinton and Gary Hart's wife).

I found the characters so well developed that I had mental pictures of them. I know black women similar to each of the characters.

I hope Cary writes another soon.

Pride represents an intentional improvement in Lorene Cary's voice. I read Black Ice and found that at times I felt (as a former boarding school student) unbalanced by the things she was saying. It seemed to me that she fluttered between the mature author that she was and the unnerved student whose voice she intended to portray. In Pride, Cary found her voice, and altered the foundations of her confident perspective, to align her words with four distinctly seperate character mentalities. I could hear her thoughts, and smiled at the simplicity and ease in which she seemed to find speaking through her characters. I felt compelled through the pages by the tantilizing subplots that make up the storyboard. The additional perspectives in each situation add comical, emotional and entirely fresh views on things that at first can be quite jarring. The play between harsh reality and alternative interlude is extraordinary. I found reading Pride a joy, and was thoroughly impressed by its complexity after what i considered a flat narrative in Black Ice. You will enjoy this book.

Cary is a gifted writer with an ear for dialogue. She makes the plot move quickly without sacrificing characterization. The four women came alive on the page for me. Arneatha's response to the baby, Tamara's bitter ironies and witticisms, Roz's razor-sharp determination, Audrey's compounding losses (music, sight, father, self), all came through in Cary's careful attention to individual detail.

If you want a good entertaining read that opens you up to think about the ways in which women try to keep it together while things around us change and collapse and reformulate in ways that seem too fast and too much for us to absorb, read Pride.