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jg12389's review
4.0
Overall I really enjoyed these stories, both the fiction and the nonfiction. The stories are all quite different which I liked. I did feel like most of the time when writing about the female characters (especially in the nonfiction stories), the writing was incredibly sexualized and the women were often talked about entirely in relation to the way they looked. I felt like they were just there to be objectified by the male characters (and the writer themselves?). Still would recommend it, but that did stand out and irk me.
agavemonster's review
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Beautifully evocative, if a little simple. I could smell the chamise and the sagebrush. The occasional brilliant phrase or metaphor hits you like a thundershock. But I agree with the previous reviewer that found the male characters' sexist attitudes toward women bleeding through unattractively from one story to another.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Animal death, and Suicide
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Pedophilia
grvhppr's review
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
2.0
First off, as someone who lives on one of the reservations mentioned, the non-fiction stories had me nodding along. While Natives are all different, and we all have our own traditions, there's many similarities when it comes to the slice of life. I'm of a younger generation than the author (and we don't know each other), but I remember some of the people in the non-fiction stories. Thank you for honoring them.
I picked up Bird Songs Don't Lie: Writings from the Rez during Native Heritage Month (November), and I'm glad I did! While not all the stories resonated with me, I think that's the beauty of short stories--there's something for everyone. My favorites were The Ring-Card Girl, Pluto plus Alexis, and Tukwut. In those stories, I could see my female cousins taking back their autonomy and my uncle doing all he can to survive against insurmountable odds, respectively. Overall, I could see my own rez experiences from cover to cover, however, my only gripe is the objectification of women. The men in the stories only seem to care for their bodies; at times it feels like the author's views bleed into all the male characters on this particular topic.
I would recommend this book because it brought back tons of nostalgia for how rez life used to be before blood quantum, casinos, and disenrollment. When there was a time that being Native was about how one was brought up.
I picked up Bird Songs Don't Lie: Writings from the Rez during Native Heritage Month (November), and I'm glad I did! While not all the stories resonated with me, I think that's the beauty of short stories--there's something for everyone. My favorites were The Ring-Card Girl, Pluto plus Alexis, and Tukwut. In those stories, I could see my female cousins taking back their autonomy and my uncle doing all he can to survive against insurmountable odds, respectively. Overall, I could see my own rez experiences from cover to cover, however, my only gripe is the objectification of women. The men in the stories only seem to care for their bodies; at times it feels like the author's views bleed into all the male characters on this particular topic.
I would recommend this book because it brought back tons of nostalgia for how rez life used to be before blood quantum, casinos, and disenrollment. When there was a time that being Native was about how one was brought up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Animal death
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