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ikuo1000's review against another edition
4.0
Another re-read. I first picked up this book a year or two after seeing Smoke Signals in college. The movie was also written by Sherman Alexie and based on this book.
I'm not even white, and I feel a bit of white man's guilt at the plight of Native Americans. All too often, in history and the media, they are vilified, romanticized, or victimized. The Native Americans were the first people to have been given the short end of the stick by America, and unfortunately, on the whole, generally speaking, they have yet to rise up, yet to overcome their circumstances. (There is no Native American equivalent of Barack Obama or Sonia Sotomayor.) Here, Sherman Alexie gives voice to a people who have so much to tell.
Alexie's writing is sometimes poetic, sometimes fantastical. It's hard to know where the heartbreaking reality ends, and where the fanciful storytelling begins. I have to admit, I didn't always "get" what he was trying to say. Alexie is matter-of-fact while still finding humor in the oddest places. The stories are characterized by nostalgia and an even greater sense of loss: loss of tradition, loss of respect, loss of opportunity. Nevertheless, resilience and pride in the ways of the old tradition leave one with the hope that there's still a fighting chance.
I'm not even white, and I feel a bit of white man's guilt at the plight of Native Americans. All too often, in history and the media, they are vilified, romanticized, or victimized. The Native Americans were the first people to have been given the short end of the stick by America, and unfortunately, on the whole, generally speaking, they have yet to rise up, yet to overcome their circumstances. (There is no Native American equivalent of Barack Obama or Sonia Sotomayor.) Here, Sherman Alexie gives voice to a people who have so much to tell.
Alexie's writing is sometimes poetic, sometimes fantastical. It's hard to know where the heartbreaking reality ends, and where the fanciful storytelling begins. I have to admit, I didn't always "get" what he was trying to say. Alexie is matter-of-fact while still finding humor in the oddest places. The stories are characterized by nostalgia and an even greater sense of loss: loss of tradition, loss of respect, loss of opportunity. Nevertheless, resilience and pride in the ways of the old tradition leave one with the hope that there's still a fighting chance.
lizziematata's review against another edition
3.0
I absolutely love the movie Smoke Signals so I wanted to read this to really get the feel the movie was trying to go for and I believe now that the movie really captured the tone of the stories and even Alexie's writing style. Alexie has a way of combing traditionalism and reservation life with modernity and the outside world that makes his stories both unique and humorous. There were some stories that had me truly laughing out loud (The Approximate Size of My Favorite Tumor was my favorite and the funniest). The focus on making light of heavy real-world topics is almost a specialization of Alexies, but a lot of the time each story was still mostly sad. I don't believe Alexie promotes a stereotype of the drinking Indian, it's like he said, those are the Indians he knows, but it is difficult to get through each story that focuses some way or another on alcoholism-even in the stories about the Native Americans that don't drink. Ultimately, while one has to be in the mood for heavy topics and sad undertones, this is a great book of short stories that really brings light to Native American culture and reservation life which I hope will make some people realize that there are differences between all cultures, but none so much to produce xenophobia.
thevicarslice's review against another edition
5.0
Why I hadn't read Sherman Alexie before now is a mystery to me. However, in my defense, I probably wouldn't have been as impacted by the beauty of his writing in my less mature and reflective days. It's a first step, a huge first step, towards an understanding I've not known before.
sblake33's review against another edition
4.0
As with any short story collection, I enjoyed some stories more than others, but with this one I generally enjoyed them all. Alexie's writing in this book was beautiful, one story even brought me to tears. The characters were vibrant, layered & real. Though there were so flaws, all the stories were fragmented, disjointed, and random. But I enjoyed the fact that in a way they were all connected, I enjoyed see characters In different stages of their life and how they've changed or stayed the same. Some stories focused on characters family and showed how they were the same.
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Anyhoo, I recommend this collection to everybody, one of the best books I've been forced to read for school.
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Anyhoo, I recommend this collection to everybody, one of the best books I've been forced to read for school.
lira_the_recluse's review against another edition
5.0
Great collection of pseudo fictional short stories. They illuminated parts of Indian life I had no idea about. Often heavy, but still can find humor in the dark. I would recommend it to anyone trying to expand their authors
pnw_michelle's review against another edition
5.0
Dammit, Sherman Alexie, making me cry and making me thank him for the privilege of crying while reading his beautiful, beautiful stories. I don't know how he can write about so much sorrow and injustice - REAL sorrow and injustice - but make the experience of reading it as tender as it is painful. But he does. Required reading, in my opinion.
jessrock's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a collection of intertwined short stories, and I didn't realize until I started reading it that it was the basis for the movie Smoke Signals (which is a good movie, watch it if you haven't already). The stories take place on a Spokane reservation in Washington and primarily follow the life of a character named Victor from his boyhood to old age, as he watches and participates in life on the reservation. I really enjoyed Alexie's storytelling style and it was also pretty cool to round out what I'd seen in Smoke Signals (which really just focuses on the events in a couple of the stories) with all these other stories about the characters I met in that movie. I'd like to read more of Alexie's works.
kcgrim's review against another edition
3.0
Wish this were longer the main character was interesting.
megsuber's review against another edition
5.0
When I first read this book a decade ago, it gutted me. And it still guts me. Sherman Alexie’s work is hauntingly beautiful.