Reviews with content warning for Animal death - There There

He looked off, out of the living-room window, across the street, or father, off to where the sun had set, or past that, back at his life maybe, and then he got this look in his eyes, it was something Dene had seen in his mom's eyes, something that looked like remembering and dressing at once.

I lost track of the characters a bit in the last third of the book but it didn't change the fact that all of them felt incredibly real.

Something about it will make sense. The bullets have been coming from miles. Years. Their sound will break the water in our bodies, tear sound itself, rip out lives in half. There tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, the fact we've been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, alive, only to die in the grass wearing feathers.

Content Warnings

clare072's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

sarahbythebook's review

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challenging dark sad tense

4.0

I'm not totally sure how to feel after finishing this book, but I can say that There There is a powerful story. If you can handle the content warnings, it's worth reading.

"The problem with indigenous art in general is that it's stuck in the past. The catch or the double bind about the whole thing is this: if it isn't pulling from tradition, how is it indigenous? and if it is stuck in tradition, in the past, how can it be relevant to other indigenous people living now? How can it be modern?"

Tommy Orange's debut novel answers his own question as it weaves together the lives and experiences of 12 Native people coming together in Oakland, California, for a massive powwow. Their strings are all tangled together in ways clear and confusing, and Orange uses these characters and their experiences to bring front and center the lives of "Urban Indians" for his readers. Through their lives, readers are able to see the struggles, challenges, and failures that Native society is forced to navigate while highlighting the culture that still exists despite colonizers' best efforts.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I struggled with the sheer number of points of view and keeping them all straight, especially the young men. As the book progressed, that got better, but the beginning in particular was rough for me. I think this would have been better with a physical or digital copy of the book rather than the audiobook.

The ambiguity at the end is frustrating, but I also think it's perfect for this book. The lives of Native and Indigenous people are not static and do not have an ending; this story, a glimpse into that reality, should not have an ending either. Instead, readers should take it as a call to action to do the work to improve the lives of Native communities around them, boosting a beautiful culture so that the youth can break the cycles of poverty that white Americans forced them into years and years ago.

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Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

There There by Tommy Orange

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