Scan barcode
yanagicha's review against another edition
3.0
Someone recommended this to me, and it was pretty good! The world-building was interesting and I liked the ending. Would have got a higher rating but I felt the protagonist really didn't get any character development, and also the novel was a bit hamfisted with some of the messages it was trying to get across.
bookish_caprice's review
3.0
It started fine but slowly deteriorated into nothing special and even outright annoying. In the beginning you get the impression that prince or king are alpha males and important people but by the end they are described as nothing more but a trophy. And they also whine a lot like spoiled brats.
There is too much inner monologue, there’s not much of relationship building and descriptions of their interactions that will make it reasonable for her to think about brainwashing. In fact It was all in her head, and sometimes I thought she’s just brainwashed herself with constant repeated thoughts.
There isn’t much of the world building as well. And writing in present tense was confusing sometimes.
There was a hint of magic in book (spell) but there were no description of any technological advancements at all, they used ink and feathers to write and fire to warm to room! If they have interstellar transportation why would they have and use some other technologies in everyday life? .
There is too much inner monologue, there’s not much of relationship building and descriptions of their interactions that will make it reasonable for her to think about brainwashing. In fact It was all in her head, and sometimes I thought she’s just brainwashed herself with constant repeated thoughts.
There isn’t much of the world building as well. And writing in present tense was confusing sometimes.
Spoiler
The ending is almost ridiculous - after all the ordeals they just opened the door, walked out, took an interstellar shuttle! and simply flew away into the stars! Whaaaaat?There was a hint of magic in book (spell) but there were no description of any technological advancements at all, they used ink and feathers to write and fire to warm to room! If they have interstellar transportation why would they have and use some other technologies in everyday life? .
mxsallybend's review
5.0
Well now, this certainly wasn't the book that I was expecting. When Peggy Barnett pitched it to me, I thought it would just be a fun bit of erotic gender-bending fluff. Of course, knowing Peggy, and knowing what else she writes, I really should have expected more. Yes, there is a lot of eroticism here, and it definitely breaks the gender binary, but none of it is fluff. In fact, Lips Like Ice is a very deep, very thoughtful story that goes to some very dark places, both physically and psychologically.
Before I get into its themes, let me set the stage for you. Lydia awakens from a surreal sort of illness, bereft of both her memories and emotions, to find herself in an alien land. All she knows is that she has been brought there by the Queen, to serve as a pet for an adolescent royal. Not a friend, not a companion, not a lover, but a pet that will help its owner to learn compassion and caring. As for her owner, the Prince is an elf-like being – perhaps a god or an alien – from a civilization that looks down on humanity as a lesser, animalistic race.
That brings me to the first theme here, which is one of dominance and submission. Human pets are a common aspect of BDSM erotica, usually with a collared slave who happily submits to the role. There’s a servile, submissive element, but it’s clearly role-play. Here, Peggy strips away the safety and sanity of the role-play framework and explores what it really means to be a pet, not a person. Lydia is ignored, her comforts disregarded, and often completely dismissed – not out of cruelty, but simple neglect. She nearly dies because the Prince doesn’t give any thought to her needs, and more than once is kicked like a puppy when he’s in a bad mood. It’s a relationship that evolves throughout the tale, but that role of pet, that question of ownership, is always there.
Not surprisingly, the theme that excited me the most is the one that Peggy uses to take the story outside the gender binary. The Prince, when we meet him, is a smooth, hairless, genderless being, on the cusp of maturity . . . at which time he will choose a gender. The very idea of being able to choose a gender is an attractive one, but Peggy doesn’t play it safe or easy. The Prince comes from a culture where only firstborns are expected to choose male, and younger siblings female. The fact that he has chosen male is a great scandal, putting both Lydia and himself in grave danger. There’s some fascinating exploration, particularly in the latter part of the book, into why he chose male, what prompted it, and what it all means. Anybody who has ever stepped outside the gender binary will immediately appreciate the dilemma he faces.
Actually, the Prince’s world is one in which sex is just as bent as gender, but I will restrain myself (as much as I’d love to gush over the imagination there), and not spoil the surprises!
The final theme here is one of consent. Lydia is very aware of her circumstances, and painfully aware of the ways (both deliberate and unconscious) in which the Prince tries to domesticate her and win her affection. She knows all about feeling like a victim. She’s aware of the perils of Stockholm syndrome, and she constantly questions her own actions towards the Prince. The question of rape looms large over the entire story, and if it gets uncomfortable at times . . . well, it should. To easily dismiss it or resolve it would be to neuter the whole story, and some role/gender reversal in the final act of the story really brings this theme home.
There are so many things I’d love to say about the story itself, but you really need to let it develop for yourself. Peggy took it in places I so did not expect, challenging me, delighting me, and ultimately rewarding me with an absolutely perfect ending. Lips Like Ice is often deeply thoughtful, to the point of being philosophical, but just as often tender, erotic, and exciting. OMG, is it ever worth a read!
As published on Bending the Bookshelf
Before I get into its themes, let me set the stage for you. Lydia awakens from a surreal sort of illness, bereft of both her memories and emotions, to find herself in an alien land. All she knows is that she has been brought there by the Queen, to serve as a pet for an adolescent royal. Not a friend, not a companion, not a lover, but a pet that will help its owner to learn compassion and caring. As for her owner, the Prince is an elf-like being – perhaps a god or an alien – from a civilization that looks down on humanity as a lesser, animalistic race.
That brings me to the first theme here, which is one of dominance and submission. Human pets are a common aspect of BDSM erotica, usually with a collared slave who happily submits to the role. There’s a servile, submissive element, but it’s clearly role-play. Here, Peggy strips away the safety and sanity of the role-play framework and explores what it really means to be a pet, not a person. Lydia is ignored, her comforts disregarded, and often completely dismissed – not out of cruelty, but simple neglect. She nearly dies because the Prince doesn’t give any thought to her needs, and more than once is kicked like a puppy when he’s in a bad mood. It’s a relationship that evolves throughout the tale, but that role of pet, that question of ownership, is always there.
Not surprisingly, the theme that excited me the most is the one that Peggy uses to take the story outside the gender binary. The Prince, when we meet him, is a smooth, hairless, genderless being, on the cusp of maturity . . . at which time he will choose a gender. The very idea of being able to choose a gender is an attractive one, but Peggy doesn’t play it safe or easy. The Prince comes from a culture where only firstborns are expected to choose male, and younger siblings female. The fact that he has chosen male is a great scandal, putting both Lydia and himself in grave danger. There’s some fascinating exploration, particularly in the latter part of the book, into why he chose male, what prompted it, and what it all means. Anybody who has ever stepped outside the gender binary will immediately appreciate the dilemma he faces.
Actually, the Prince’s world is one in which sex is just as bent as gender, but I will restrain myself (as much as I’d love to gush over the imagination there), and not spoil the surprises!
The final theme here is one of consent. Lydia is very aware of her circumstances, and painfully aware of the ways (both deliberate and unconscious) in which the Prince tries to domesticate her and win her affection. She knows all about feeling like a victim. She’s aware of the perils of Stockholm syndrome, and she constantly questions her own actions towards the Prince. The question of rape looms large over the entire story, and if it gets uncomfortable at times . . . well, it should. To easily dismiss it or resolve it would be to neuter the whole story, and some role/gender reversal in the final act of the story really brings this theme home.
There are so many things I’d love to say about the story itself, but you really need to let it develop for yourself. Peggy took it in places I so did not expect, challenging me, delighting me, and ultimately rewarding me with an absolutely perfect ending. Lips Like Ice is often deeply thoughtful, to the point of being philosophical, but just as often tender, erotic, and exciting. OMG, is it ever worth a read!
As published on Bending the Bookshelf
siavahda's review
5.0
Let's get this out of the way: I do not read romances. Not only do I not read romances, but until last year I was one of those horrendous snobs who looked down upon Romances, capital R, as being somehow lesser than my precious spec-fic.
Obviously this is an incredibly stupid thing to think, and I'm very glad I learned out of it.
But although I no longer deliberately avoid romance novels, I still manage to...well, never read any. I'm the girl who likes dragons and epic quests and in those kinds of stories, my darlings, the romances tend to be very poorly written. Women in popular fantasy don't tend to have a lot of agency, and the romantic (or simply sexual) relationships they tend to end up in are usually...less than ideal, shall we say.
I tell you this, because it adds weight to the declaration that Lips Like Ice knocked my fool socks off.
Look: it's kind of an alien abduction story. And it's kind of a faeries-kidnapping-humans-to-Elfland story. But mostly? Mostly it is a very, very self-aware look at agency and consent and personhood and gender, wrapped up in some of the most fascinating world-building I have ever seen. It's tense and exciting and awful and emotional. It broke my heart and made me rage and had me in tears.
It's perfect.
Lydia is a woman of colour who wakes up on another planet. Or maybe in another dimension; it's not perfectly clear. She's surrounded by very tall, very inhuman creatures she takes to calling ice elves; creatures who view her as humans view goldfish or dogs. A pet, in other words. She's been snatched from her life, spelled into amnesiac compliance, and bestowed upon a prince in much the same way human parents might give their child a kitten.
Weirdly enough, it doesn't really go well.
I don't want to talk too much about the plot. It's fascinating, though, because even as it slowly transforms into a romance - you know it shouldn't, and Lydia knows it shouldn't. Both the main character and the reader knows, every step of the way, that this is messed up and unhealthy and quite possibly not based on real emotion at all. It's bitter even at its sweetest, because how can you trust yourself to love when you know you're being brainwashed? And at the same time, there's a fantastic amount of character growth, for Lydia but particularly for her owner/master, who's simply known as 'the prince' until the final pages. Barnett is a sorceress with her words, slowly and skillfully making it clear that the prince is just as much of a victim as Lydia - if in a whole different way. She does this without once ever letting him off for his treatment of Lydia, which is something I've never seen another author accomplish. Abusers can start out as victims, but that doesn't change the fact that they are abusers. They may deserve understanding, but not forgiveness - not until they apologise and do better, at the very least.
Barnett's characters leap off the page - every page. The interactions of Lydia and the prince are multi-faceted and unflinching, even at their most horrific. Barnett does not try to sugar-coat the horror of Lydia's situation, and I think that's what saves the story from what could be a mess of dubious cliches; it's so self-aware, and Lydia herself is so self-aware, that Lips never dissolves into an unrealistic fairytale. It's not a fairytale. It's brutal. It's also incredibly human for both Lydia and the prince to build the relationship they do - even if the process of getting there will tear your heart out over and over. It's impossible not to feel every drop of Lydia's horror and frustration, her conflict as she starts to sympathise with her captor - and her fear of what that sympathy will do to her, what it means for her.
As for the ice elves themselves - not many authors can pull off really inhuman characters. The ice elves are not completely alien (although I absolutely adored their physiology and the thought Barnett has put into their culture and biology!), but neither do they feel human. It's a fine balancing act, but one that really works; completely alien aliens might be more terrifying in theory, but because the 'elves' are familiar enough to understand, it's all too easy to see comparisons between the elves' view of Lydia and humanity's views of other animals. It's an unnerving, alarming comparison (especially given that Lydia is a WoC) one that really drives home the fear and screaming frustration Lydia is forced to go through. We can understand how and why the elves think the way they do... And we, no more than Lydia, cannot convince them that they're wrong.
All of this makes it sound like a terrible book. It's not. It's one of the best written novels I've seen in a long time; one of the very best I've read so far this year. And it's not all horror and depression. There's a lot of beauty in it, and there is a happy ending. I think you need to know that, going in, or sensitive readers might not make it the whole way through...
I loved Lips Like Ice so much I had to track down Barnett's other pen-name. I won't say it here - although you can find it if you look - but I wasn't surprised to find that I already know and love her other books. I definitely recommend tracking them down. Google is your friend! In the meantime - you definitely have to read this one. If you like unique romances, if gender issues are dear to your heart, if you want an emotional roller-coaster that you can't put down - this is definitely the book for you.
Just make sure you have chocolate and tissues nearby.
Obviously this is an incredibly stupid thing to think, and I'm very glad I learned out of it.
But although I no longer deliberately avoid romance novels, I still manage to...well, never read any. I'm the girl who likes dragons and epic quests and in those kinds of stories, my darlings, the romances tend to be very poorly written. Women in popular fantasy don't tend to have a lot of agency, and the romantic (or simply sexual) relationships they tend to end up in are usually...less than ideal, shall we say.
I tell you this, because it adds weight to the declaration that Lips Like Ice knocked my fool socks off.
Look: it's kind of an alien abduction story. And it's kind of a faeries-kidnapping-humans-to-Elfland story. But mostly? Mostly it is a very, very self-aware look at agency and consent and personhood and gender, wrapped up in some of the most fascinating world-building I have ever seen. It's tense and exciting and awful and emotional. It broke my heart and made me rage and had me in tears.
It's perfect.
Lydia is a woman of colour who wakes up on another planet. Or maybe in another dimension; it's not perfectly clear. She's surrounded by very tall, very inhuman creatures she takes to calling ice elves; creatures who view her as humans view goldfish or dogs. A pet, in other words. She's been snatched from her life, spelled into amnesiac compliance, and bestowed upon a prince in much the same way human parents might give their child a kitten.
Weirdly enough, it doesn't really go well.
I don't want to talk too much about the plot. It's fascinating, though, because even as it slowly transforms into a romance - you know it shouldn't, and Lydia knows it shouldn't. Both the main character and the reader knows, every step of the way, that this is messed up and unhealthy and quite possibly not based on real emotion at all. It's bitter even at its sweetest, because how can you trust yourself to love when you know you're being brainwashed? And at the same time, there's a fantastic amount of character growth, for Lydia but particularly for her owner/master, who's simply known as 'the prince' until the final pages. Barnett is a sorceress with her words, slowly and skillfully making it clear that the prince is just as much of a victim as Lydia - if in a whole different way. She does this without once ever letting him off for his treatment of Lydia, which is something I've never seen another author accomplish. Abusers can start out as victims, but that doesn't change the fact that they are abusers. They may deserve understanding, but not forgiveness - not until they apologise and do better, at the very least.
Barnett's characters leap off the page - every page. The interactions of Lydia and the prince are multi-faceted and unflinching, even at their most horrific. Barnett does not try to sugar-coat the horror of Lydia's situation, and I think that's what saves the story from what could be a mess of dubious cliches; it's so self-aware, and Lydia herself is so self-aware, that Lips never dissolves into an unrealistic fairytale. It's not a fairytale. It's brutal. It's also incredibly human for both Lydia and the prince to build the relationship they do - even if the process of getting there will tear your heart out over and over. It's impossible not to feel every drop of Lydia's horror and frustration, her conflict as she starts to sympathise with her captor - and her fear of what that sympathy will do to her, what it means for her.
As for the ice elves themselves - not many authors can pull off really inhuman characters. The ice elves are not completely alien (although I absolutely adored their physiology and the thought Barnett has put into their culture and biology!), but neither do they feel human. It's a fine balancing act, but one that really works; completely alien aliens might be more terrifying in theory, but because the 'elves' are familiar enough to understand, it's all too easy to see comparisons between the elves' view of Lydia and humanity's views of other animals. It's an unnerving, alarming comparison (especially given that Lydia is a WoC) one that really drives home the fear and screaming frustration Lydia is forced to go through. We can understand how and why the elves think the way they do... And we, no more than Lydia, cannot convince them that they're wrong.
All of this makes it sound like a terrible book. It's not. It's one of the best written novels I've seen in a long time; one of the very best I've read so far this year. And it's not all horror and depression. There's a lot of beauty in it, and there is a happy ending. I think you need to know that, going in, or sensitive readers might not make it the whole way through...
I loved Lips Like Ice so much I had to track down Barnett's other pen-name. I won't say it here - although you can find it if you look - but I wasn't surprised to find that I already know and love her other books. I definitely recommend tracking them down. Google is your friend! In the meantime - you definitely have to read this one. If you like unique romances, if gender issues are dear to your heart, if you want an emotional roller-coaster that you can't put down - this is definitely the book for you.
Just make sure you have chocolate and tissues nearby.
jojohanna's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault
ikepauh's review against another edition
4.0
3.5
Very out there if you're not into aliens. Amusing. I don't mind not having my questions answered as Lydia's musings as she figured her new situation out was engrossing. As other reviewers have mentioned, Lips Like Ice deals with concepts such as gender and consent within the context of aliens who look like ice elves who've captured a human who's then made to be a pet. But then becomes something more. The alien...the Prince is where the 'out there' part comes in. I can't help but giggle when I think about his flowery parts. And then cry out in horror about what happens in the 2nd half of the book. Talk about getting just desserts.
Lips Like Ice ends on a happy but vague note. Questions about "where will they go?", '"what will it be like when she grows old?", "do they have enough fuel?" arise but for some reason, I don't mind the uncertainty.
Very out there if you're not into aliens. Amusing. I don't mind not having my questions answered as Lydia's musings as she figured her new situation out was engrossing. As other reviewers have mentioned, Lips Like Ice deals with concepts such as gender and consent within the context of aliens who look like ice elves who've captured a human who's then made to be a pet. But then becomes something more. The alien...the Prince is where the 'out there' part comes in. I can't help but giggle when I think about his flowery parts. And then cry out in horror about what happens in the 2nd half of the book. Talk about getting just desserts.
Lips Like Ice ends on a happy but vague note. Questions about "where will they go?", '"what will it be like when she grows old?", "do they have enough fuel?" arise but for some reason, I don't mind the uncertainty.
mx_manda's review
4.0
I'm not sure what I was expecting going into this read, but it wasn't quite what this story actually is. Overall, this is a solid sci-fi romance with a trigger/content warning for rape in the latter part of the book. It is quite heavy-handed with themes at times--feeling like they're being pounded into you with a hammer--which did kill some of my enjoyment in parts. (I tend to like more subtlety, but I realize that sometimes a point will not get across if it's not screamed.) This story explores consent, choice, ownership, gender construct, and societal norms, among others, and it may have the most original "abduction" plot line I've encountered to date. This one messed with my head a little and left me questioning if I should be routing for Lydia and Prince or not. As their story unfolds, things get messy pretty fast. Who knew there could be so many unintended consequences for receiving a pet?
an_honest_puck's review against another edition
4.0
This is difficult for me to rate, because the first half of the novel was right up my alley. While the second half was rushed as heck, and heavily reliant on tropes I dislike. I found those shallow integration of the tropes to have lowered my reading enjoyment considerably. I also felt the ending came out of nowhere :/.
Nonetheless, I appreciate how the narrative tackled the Prince's struggles with his gender identity through the lenses of his society vs our society. That was actually really unique and interesting to read about in this book genre, so I will up my rating just for that~
Nonetheless, I appreciate how the narrative tackled the Prince's struggles with his gender identity through the lenses of his society vs our society. That was actually really unique and interesting to read about in this book genre, so I will up my rating just for that~
beckiebookworm1974's review
3.0
3.5 Stars
This one is a very ethereal and unique read it's really a hard one to explain adequately and put into words being so unusual.
So this is not some erotic pet play type sci-fi, it's actually more of a coming of age story, a journey of self-discovery that could play-out against any backdrop not just here, it just happens to be set on an alien world.
It's about teaching someone care and compassion for someone apparently inferior and at the same time accepting things that are beyond our control.
Its also about acceptance and being true to yourself even if that means going against the grain.
This was actually fascinating and oh so strange and I don't think I've read anything quite like this before.
Lydia wakes on a strange world the apparent pet to a spoilt and petulant Prince on the cusp of maturing.
Her purpose here is to teach the Prince care and responsibility towards a lesser being not as any plaything.
What makes this so unusual is that our prince gets to choose his own gender here and though expected by custom to choose female he decides to go with how he feels and actually chooses male.
When we first meet the Prince he is actually genderless his chosen gender is something that comes later.
I didn't really think of this as a romance but more of an evolution where the characters involved grow as they learn life lessons along the way.
When we start this the Prince's actions towards Lydia once the novelty wears off are those of disinterest and thoughtless neglect even mistreating her when he is angry like a master taking out his temper towards others on a convenient pet that can't fight back.
The parallels here with how people can treat their pets and how Lydia herself was being treated as a pet, the swings of emotion from the prince from indulgent pet owner to I can't be bothered was fascinating.
Obviously, as this progresses the sexual factor is also brought into the equation and rather than being titillating, it was more one of discovery and growth.
This also had dark themes and you realise as this progresses that the prince life is far from charmed and that he is just as scared and lost at times as Lydia.
This was a really thought-provoking odyssey of unworldly bizarreness.
But I did appreciate the hidden messages it imparted.
Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
https://www.facebook.com/beckiebookworm/
www.beckiebookworm.com