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kaz9's review against another edition
4.0
Amazing, as always. Beautifully written and crafted, enlightening (sadly) to my white self, and emotionally true. This is really a 4.5. The only reason it's not five is because as much as I love the quilt metaphor and that every piece of the quilt is integral to the whole and agree that circles and repetition are healing, I thought there were places it could've been tighter. Then again, as I kept reminding myself, whose intensely personal story is ever (should ever be) "tight?"
jennajean's review against another edition
5.0
LOVED. My favorite book I read in 2019. I highly recommend the audiobook, read by the author, for its emotional intensity and vulnerability and realness.
erinthompson11's review against another edition
5.0
I'm amazed at the way Alexie was able to be so incredibly vulnerable about his life experiences. One of the biggest reasons we read is to understand the human experience through the eyes of others and Alexie's memoir does not disappoint. Powerful and emotional writing that might leave you in tears.
birdinflight1's review against another edition
4.0
This story tugged at my heart in so many ways. The most heart-wrenching part of the book was the way Alexis so explicitly illustrates intergenerational trauma. From the abuse received in the boarding schools to the way the government took away native people's spirituality, sustenance, and purpose in life by putting them on reservations and damming the Columbia which destroyed the salmon lifestyle, these abuses of mind, body, and spirit affect the way parents cope and care for their children, thus passing on the trauma. When I lived on an Indian reservation in my early twenties, I heard the elders' stories about how the teachers would whip them for speaking the Indian language at boarding school, but I didn't understand how this would affect future generations of children. Also, I didn't understand the extent of the emotional and sexual abuse in the boarding schools, and how that kind of trauma can affect future generations.
I appreciated learning about how his mother, who had undiagnosed bipolar disease and indescribable trauma in her own life, self medicated with alcohol. However, after a particularly bad night of drinking, she swears of alcohol, but doesn't get help for the underlying chemical imbalance or trauma that she was medicating with alcohol. Thus she is prone to rages and general meanness towards her children. In this book, Alexis is working through his mixed feelings about his mother after she dies.
I really enjoyed the last chapter of the book about the little bird that experienced trauma (hitting a window) but how it shook and shook and walked in circles and eventually healed itself. This reminds of TRE, which I am just starting to explore, as a way of releasing past trauma.
I appreciated learning about how his mother, who had undiagnosed bipolar disease and indescribable trauma in her own life, self medicated with alcohol. However, after a particularly bad night of drinking, she swears of alcohol, but doesn't get help for the underlying chemical imbalance or trauma that she was medicating with alcohol. Thus she is prone to rages and general meanness towards her children. In this book, Alexis is working through his mixed feelings about his mother after she dies.
I really enjoyed the last chapter of the book about the little bird that experienced trauma (hitting a window) but how it shook and shook and walked in circles and eventually healed itself. This reminds of TRE, which I am just starting to explore, as a way of releasing past trauma.
miachalupa's review against another edition
wowowowow one of my fave memoirs, just bought a physical copy to reread it, but honestly, the audiobook is *chef's kiss*
daumari's review against another edition
5.0
Oh man, what a way to begin my 2018 reads. In You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, Sherman Alexie remembers, celebrates, mourns, and reflects on his mother, Lillian Alexie, through 78 poems and 78 essays (she was 78 when she passed). They seem to be chronological, from when his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, through her passing, to the months later, though some poems and anecdotes are revisited and revised later, as a nod to the unreliability of memory of an exquisitely serial fabulist.
Painful, complicated feelings regarding his mother lie alongside recognizing her fierceness, and her pains. Some of the essays also address Alexie's youth on the rez- I found that essay #79: The Game really resonated with me, as it describes the paradox of being a celebrated brown kid in his predominantly white high school in Reardon, WA while knowing that his peers and teachers grew up to go >70% for Trump in the 2016 election. I quoted it during my page reads, but he mentions intended-as-benign-but-harmful "I don't think of you as an Indian" (or insert other minority) that comes from both well-intended conservatives and liberals. That somehow, they identify 'normalness' or assimilation with being white/default, implying that others can't also be a writer/student/person unless falling under that lack of label. It erases our identities. From page 222 in the hardcover: "It's easy for a white racist to fall in love with an accept one member of a minority-one Indian-and their real and perceived talents and flaws. But it's much tougher for a racist to accept a dozen Indians. And impossible for a white racist to accept the entire race of Indians- or an entire race of any nonwhite people."
Anyway, a good read, and I'll definitely pursue more of Sherman's work in the future.
Painful, complicated feelings regarding his mother lie alongside recognizing her fierceness, and her pains. Some of the essays also address Alexie's youth on the rez- I found that essay #79: The Game really resonated with me, as it describes the paradox of being a celebrated brown kid in his predominantly white high school in Reardon, WA while knowing that his peers and teachers grew up to go >70% for Trump in the 2016 election. I quoted it during my page reads, but he mentions intended-as-benign-but-harmful "I don't think of you as an Indian" (or insert other minority) that comes from both well-intended conservatives and liberals. That somehow, they identify 'normalness' or assimilation with being white/default, implying that others can't also be a writer/student/person unless falling under that lack of label. It erases our identities. From page 222 in the hardcover: "It's easy for a white racist to fall in love with an accept one member of a minority-one Indian-and their real and perceived talents and flaws. But it's much tougher for a racist to accept a dozen Indians. And impossible for a white racist to accept the entire race of Indians- or an entire race of any nonwhite people."
Anyway, a good read, and I'll definitely pursue more of Sherman's work in the future.
katiegoodwin's review against another edition
1.0
I'm withholding a star rating. Alexis is haunting and funny and heartbreaking in this memoir, but I'm haunted and heartbroken more by the knowledge of how he abused his power within the literary community. I cannot separate the man from the work, and I cannot finish this book. What a shame to have discolored such a beautiful body of work.
edobis84's review against another edition
5.0
Heartbreaking, beautiful. At times the emotions hit too close to home. Alexie is a master with words.