The Ice Moves for No One by Arlo Z. Graves

Disclaimer: This book is a participant in the Indie Ink Awards 2025 and I read it as a judge. My personal rating does not reflect its score for the contest.

I like to hear her talk, I enjoy how deeply she loves what she loves, and how shamelessly she loves them.

By the time the story begins, our selkie protagonist, Thalon, has already been through a lot. After losing what she thought defined her, she starts a journey of self-discovery while her newfound disability pulls her into a vicious cycle of her physical and mental health deteriorating. I got tired of her calling herself an “incompetent omelet” (even more than once per page), not by the self-deprecation, but for the overuse of the phrase. I believe the disability representation was spectacularly done, and I’ve seen the sentiment echoed by reviewers living with chronic illness.

This might be just the case with the free copy I received for judging, but I believe it desperately needs a proofreading pass for the rampant homophone misuse alone. There are also comma splices, as seen in the quote I shared in the beginning.

There are off-page (or needless) deaths, multiple changes of scenery, and characters leaving for half the novel only to appear briefly at a central part in the story. This book had me constantly wondering where it was going, and it gave me whiplash. It might be intended to mirror the main character’s meandering fate as she tries to find a place to belong now that her life has been turned upside down. But it mostly felt as if the author had no real end goal and was trying to find it out as the story went on. I also found it a bit slow-paced, which didn’t help grab my attention. Despite the disorientation, I found the ending (and some twists) predictable.

The Numenera-inspired worldbuilding is pretty interesting, with devices coming from another realm, called the Otherside, rather than from past civilizations. By the end of the book, the Otherside still remains mostly a mystery, leaving questions open for the rest of the series to answer. There are also various fantastical races, but one of my favorite details of this world is that Thalon worships a trans goddess, in whom she finds strength for building herself as she is.

This book was an Indie Ink Awards winner for Neurodiversity Representation by a Neurodiverse Author, and it’s a deserving winner at that. Some of the traits shown by this secondary character are selective mutism, hyperfixations, flat affect, and the struggle to survive in a world that wasn’t built for people like you. Plus, the rejection and ableism it entails. All of which I am well acquainted with.

There’s a mentor character who isn’t as prominent, but deserves recognition. He voices one of the book’s main themes: even when you find it hard to accept yourself, you are deserving of love. I believe many of the side characters, old and new in Algur’s life, have their own wisdom to impart and show her in different ways the aforementioned lesson.

The Ice Moves for No One is also an anti-capitalist, environmental tale. But in the center of it all, it’s about reaching rock bottom and building yourself back up.