Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

25 reviews

cassielaj's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

This story is emotional and powerful. I learned so much about the horrors that governments inflicted on indigenous peoples. I appreciate that amidst the horror, this story instills some hope about the future. I like that the story and perspectives jump around, but each is still immersive enough that I didn’t get lost

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Suicide, Child abuse, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Drug use, Drug abuse, and Alcohol

kailas's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Forced institutionalization, Death, Genocide, Sexual assault, Racism, Addiction, Misogyny, Grief, Suicide, Rape, Kidnapping, Drug abuse, Child abuse, Child death, Self harm, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Colonisation

arianebedard's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Religious bigotry, Rape, and Colonisation

bnelson13's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

A beautifully written, absolutely heartbreaking story. I can't even begin to put into words how Five Little Indians has made me feel while reading it. The absolute horror of the residental schools and what the survivors went through, and their struggles just to heal and try and live a decent life after is just crushing. An amazing read, the stories were captivating. Be prepared to cry.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pedophilia, Death of parent, Alcohol, Child death, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Cursing, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Hate crime, Medical trauma, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Suicide, Alcoholism, Murder, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

rozereads's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Grief, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, Death of parent, and Death

breanneisdeadinside's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad fast-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

This one made me cry.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Rape, and Religious bigotry

kelly_e's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Title: Five Little Indians
Author: Michelle Good
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5.0
Pub Date: April 14, 2020

T H R E E • W O R D S

Essential • Heartbreaking • Powerful

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Taken from their families and sent to a church-run residential school as small children, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie must learn to live in the real world upon their release. As the title suggests, Five Little Indians tells the stories of five young adults, with very few skills or resources, navigating and trying to survive in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Over the years their paths will cross as they each must contend with the trauma they endured for years at the Mission school. A story about trauma and loss, love and friendship, and coming to term with the past, while ultimately finding a way forward.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Of the five finalists for Canada Reads 2022, this was the one I had heard the most about prior to it being shortlisted. Five Little Indians is a work of fiction, but at it's heart it is gruesome and heartbreaking lived experience of so many residential school survivors and their families. Filled with a lot of trauma, there is certainly a lot to unpack, but there's also an underlying sense of hope and resiliency.

Told from five perspective in an alternating fashion, each one offers a different story that needs to be told. The five individuals each suffered a similar trauma, yet the various accounts explore how that trauma culminated in a completely different experience for each individual. Michelle Good utilizes this tool in order to showcase the broad scope of the long-lasting impact residential schools have had.

As someone trying to learn more about a past I was never taught, I felt this book really bridged a gap. There are books that ultimately shift everything you thought you knew, and this book was one of them for me. It's no surprise it was crowned the winner of Canada Reads 2022, as the one book to connect us all. This is a book we all need, and at its heart it is a book about connection - the connections to family and culture lost and connections made through shared experience. There is no one book I will be recommending more this year than Five Little Indians

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• all Canadians!
• teachers/professors
• anyone wanting to learn more

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"'I just don't know what to do.' Bella squeezed Kenny's hand. 'It's like most of me is gone and I can't get it back.'"

"'Sometimes I think I did die, I'm just still walking around.'"

"'Child, he loved you more than life. Me too. It was himself he couldn't love. They did that to him. Whatever they didn't break in him, they bent. They beat him so many times I couldn't even count. He never told me this, but I know Brother was bothering him too. That creep went after so many of those little boys.'"

"'You know what Mariah taught me about death? That the only thing our loved ones suffer is when we are suffering here without them. We know he is free, finally, in the green grass world. You know he would not want you to suffer.'
'I try. It just hurts so much. He deserved so much better.'
'We all did. But I guess the only thing we can do is try to make our own lives better now.'"

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, Addiction, Child death, Alcoholism, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexual violence, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual assault, Colonisation, and Religious bigotry

susanknights's review

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Rape, Religious bigotry, and Torture

reading_rainbows's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Drug abuse, Grief, Medical content, Child death, Colonisation, Rape, Religious bigotry, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Child abuse, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Racism, and Sexual violence

thebacklistborrower's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.5

The first of the five shortlisted Canada Reads 2022 books that I’ve read. I took a leap and picked this one out of the longlist to start with, and turns out I picked well! This was a book I had seen a lot about since it was published in 2020. 

Cw: residential schools

Five Little Indians tells the stories of five Indigenous people dealing with the impacts of residential schools. There are five key characters, but others appear for chapters here and there. The book starts in a residential school near Mission, BC, but from there, the reader follows the characters through the United States and Canada, each intertwining with each others stories and paths throughout their lives.

It should be no surprise that this is a dark book, with sad elements. The book is not explicit about many of the abuses suffered by the characters, but all are affected. The book deals with the death of characters who cannot cope with what they experienced, and others who cope poorly. But there is also, of course, survival and resilience. The connections they make between each other allow them to support and mentor each other through the pain and trauma.

Canada Reads 2022 is about finding a Book to Connect Us. This book is so deeply about connection. The connections lost with family from being stolen away, and the connections lost to culture. But also connections made: not all the characters knew much about each other from the school, but the common history of the school connected them. And connections made to activists and mentors that helped build them up above the lot expected by the school and society at large.

This book will connect readers by showing so many different stories in a single book. The stories of residential schools, escapes, rising above trauma, and succumbing to it, the American Indian Movement, incarceration, and retribution will connect us by showing us all that there is no one way forward, and we need to make connections to get to a better future for all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Sexual violence, Racism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Violence, Self harm, and Religious bigotry