Reviews

Buckskin Cocaine by Erika T. Wurth

kappafrog's review

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dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This was different than I was expecting. The final story takes up almost half of the book.
I was hoping that Olivia's story might draw together all the people from the earlier stories in interesting ways. She'd appeared in a few and I was wondering if we were building to something climactic. But it didn't end up going that way. Her story still represented a lot of what the book was about - the conflict between fame and the pull of home for a variety of Native people trying to make it big. But it felt a little strange spending so much time on things like her picking out an outfit for a few pages when we'd only spent that many pages with someone like Barry Four Voices.


I think my favourite story was Gary Hollywood. I liked when he would show up from a different character's perspective in passing, no one knowing the world he carried inside him. The author excelled at getting into the voices of a huge variety of people with many distinctive voices. No two characters felt the same. Lucy Bigboca was the most cartoonish and felt the least like a real person, but everyone else felt very real. The haunting story from Barry Four Voices was a great way to start the collection.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about the final story and how it related to the others, but I definitely recommend this collection to anyone interested in dissecting how the pursuit of fame fractures people's identities.

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tommysyk's review against another edition

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

2.0

novelfables's review against another edition

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4.0

Don’t be like me and not read anything about books before picking them up. I didn’t realize this was multiple perspectives until maybe the third story but even though I was a bit confused in the beginning, I was still swept away by the beautiful, captivating prose.

Once I got over that minor confusion, I loved every second of this heart-wrenching intertwined story of various people following their dreams.

It was interesting to see how each character experienced life vs how others experienced them in their life; Especially, Olivia ! Seeing her in the other perspectives, I couldn’t wait to read her POV and I was definitely not disappointed!

The ending. Ugh. *sob*

I can’t recommend this enough, if you’re looking for something short and filled with emotion!

margaret_adams's review against another edition

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Why are more people not talking about Erika T. Wurth? This is a fantastic collection of interconnected short stories centered around the Native American film industry. Poignant, biting, and funny.

micahcastle's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

jenniferlynnkrohn's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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