Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Moon of the Turning Leaves

Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice

12 reviews

clemrain's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I picked this up not knowing it was a sequel. Regardless, I don’t think it’s necessary to read the first book (though I intend to) because I didn’t feel lost.

This book made me cry. It was written so softly and always punched you hard when you’re not expecting it. The pacing is brilliant. Slow in the following of the journey, tense and fast in difficult situations. It flows well. I didn’t find myself bored at all.

The characters mean a lot to me. I wanted them safe. And each brutality to them hit me. I’m happy with the ending but it is bittersweet. Leaves room for another book but I wouldn’t say it’s a necessity.

I really appreciated how Indigenous cultures and ideas took center in this book. It wasn’t an apocalypse more than it was how people thrive and follow their beliefs even in hard times. There’s a lot of talks about “land being reclaimed” in the apocalyptic genre, but I’ve found they create an antagonistic caricature of tribal cultures. This book is what I would expect realistically what cultures who connect with the land would do.

The white man being an oppressor is never going to end it seems. I couldn’t find the addition of white supremacy in these times unrealistic. It could’ve been easy to create savages of these white groups just as much as it is for white literature to do the same to Indigenous cultures. However, I didn’t find that to be the case. As much as these characters weren’t centred, they were still more than just a foreign entity. And a realistically scary one too.

Overall, this book doesn’t have much in terms of plot. It’s very similar to The Road. There is a journey, and the story isn’t about the destination. You have to care about the journey. And I did. Great read.

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sandiet's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense 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? No

5.0

"We'll always be here"

That is the perfect final sentence in Moon of the Turning Leaves.

Indigenous story telling is almost always heartbreaking yet the resilience of the Indigenous community is something to be admired.

This story picks up 12 years after Moon Over the Crusted Snow (and yes you should read that first to understand some of the backstory). 12 years after the world went dark and everything changed for their community Evan and his team of 4 are on the move once again to find a new settlement and more people. Anishinaabe people. They encounter good and evil along the way and their journey is not an easy one.
The descriptions of the naming ceremony, the burial rituals, the sweat lodge and the land and water were so vivid I felt like I was in the novel.

Excellent, excellent book. A great deal to be learned from this book.

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dananana's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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jayisreading's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

Waubgeshig Rice returns with an equally quiet yet bold sequel that continues to explore the meaning of “post-apocalypse” to Indigenous peoples. This time, though, it is to consider what comes after. Following the same Anishinaabe community from Moon of the Crusted Snow, the sequel takes place a little over a decade after the blackout, and the community must address their dwindling food resources. As a result, a small scouting party of six, led by Evan Whitesky, is formed to venture into the unknown and find a new place to call home. More specifically, they decide to return to their ancestral home.

I admit that I found the first third of the novel to be a little too slow, but thinking back to my overall reading experience, I’m realizing that this was Rice laying out the foundations to build up to an intense series of events. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was explosive in action, but the sequel definitely felt more intense to me as a result of the stakes being higher. On a different note, something that struck me about this novel was the ongoing theme of reclamation (at least, that was how I understood it). Years after the blackout, nature reclaimed much of the land that was once taken by settlers. Relatedly, I felt that Rice was reclaiming Anishinaabe culture with how he presented beliefs and traditions throughout the novel, particularly emphasized by the untranslated conversations in Anishinaabemowin between characters and the way they looked towards the future of the Anishinaabe people. While colonialism wasn’t explicitly discussed, the blackout gave them the chance of restoration. There were moments that threatened this chance, which I interpreted as an allegory to the numerous attempts to erase Indigenous cultures and histories, but Rice makes clear that they will always survive and will always be present.

The novel has been marketed as a standalone, but I think it would really help to read the first novel to really understand Rice’s themes and why this sequel was written the way it was. Overall, this was more of an intense read than I expected it to be, while still maintaining a sense of quiet that resulted in a rather reflective reading experience.

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raptorq's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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sarmcp's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Waub did it again, folks: just like last time, I could not put this book down for the life of me. I was so overcome with emotion by the end that I had to give in to a good cry - that kind of investment is no small feat for an author to achieve. If Moon of the Crusted Snow remains my favourite novel, this one is a close second.

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