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barnstormingbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
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? It's complicated
4.0
Last month I finally read Love Medicine and now I guess I’m reading the complete series, but out of order. Because this is not necessarily a linear series, but instead the story of a community told from various perspectives over lifetimes it feels like the order isn’t necessarily important. Instead we just keep finding new pieces to the puzzle that defines this community.
The Last Report follows Father Damian, a priest with a secret past and identity. This is a fascinating character study of someone who decides to live as a gender different from the born sex for reasons that are not based in sexuality, instead due to opportunity, community, and faith.
This book is steeped in Catholic imagery and iconography. Father Damian (who is also referred to as Agnes depending on the context of the moment) is devout. A woman who once wanted to become a nun, but due to some interesting interactions with music was pushed out. Through a fluke of happenstance she assumes the identity of a dead priest living as a man. Through his new identity Father Damian builds a supportive community and deep friendships in a community that has no reason to trust a priest.
I loved Father Damian, but I loved Cashpaw and Margaret more. Here we find the wild and a little weird that is so endearing in all Erdrich’s books. It is rare to find an author that can navigate so many characters and storylines without wasting the readers’ time with extraneous recycling of details and plot points.
mrjess_bhs's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book and Agnes is such a fascinating character, as are so many of the supporting characters. The analysis of morality and faith throughout the novel was deep and thought provoking, while the narrative and dialogue kept the pages turning and me consistently engrossed
heyitskali's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
colindac's review against another edition
5.0
I always feel like I'm coming home when I read Erdrich
miocenemama's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book. I love how the main character came to respect and even adopt parts of Native culture. The main character assumes the identity of a priest she had met that she later finds had drowned on his way to serve the Ojibwe people. At this point, she has lost everything, including some parts of her memory. After surviving the flood herself and spending a miraculous night in which she emerges refreshed and fortified, she feels the call to serve God. She believes she can best do this by fulfilling the mission given to the drowned Father Damien. She goes intending to save souls but finds her own soul as the beliefs of the Ojibwe people begin to meld with her own. One thing I really appreciated was the Ojibwe attitude to sex and gender roles. Though Agnes tries desperately to hide her true gender, those who do guess it react in a matter-of-fact way, and, in one case, even help her to keep up the ruse. Through Father Damien's long life, we see the complicated lives of the people on the reservation including the loss of land, the devastation of introduced sickness, starvation, and some of the effects of imposed religious and government systems on the Native family structure. The book is full of love and turmoil. There is a sweetness to Agnes/Father Damien that allows him to come to love and appreciate his adopted people. He is challenged by a woman that some consider to be a saint, but he knows to be evil and spiteful. However, to reveal her true nature is to jeopardize his own secret. As he considers this, he fears not just for himself, but for what will happen to the children he has baptized and the marriages he has officiated. Father Jude, the priest that comes to investigate Sister Leopolda for possible sainthood, is changed by the stories he hears and the rush of emotions he feels for Lulu, one of the women that father Damien has watched grow up. The ending is tender, and I found myself loving these people with all of their faults, wisdom, and beauty.
lian_tanner's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of those books that makes me want to go through all my previous reads and downgrade the five-star ones - because they don't match up to this one. A few of them do, of course. 'The Last Report' reminded me a little of 'The Tenderness of Wolves' by Stef Penney - I think because of the depth and the beauty of the writing. It's an exquisite story, often painful, occasionally veering into magical realism, frequently funny, but always intensely human and compassionate. And the ending, with its turning around of things, is wonderful. Father Damien/Agnes is a character for the ages, full of love, wonder and enduring innocence, and determined to be what he/she is called to be, but in his/her own particular way.
sabinasolorzano's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
slow-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? N/A
4.0
kiramke's review against another edition
4.0
Erdrich tells such beautifully interwoven stories that as soon as I start one book, I want to pull out all the others and read them more or less simultaneously. Not a criticism; I'm just resisting the urge to start back at the beginning again.
brewsacks's review against another edition
5.0
I think that The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse has been on my to-read shelf for almost a decade. Back in the days when my super-reader-friends were just introducing me to good books, and I was finally able to read things for myself, and not just for my kids (Some kids are late readers. Some adults are late readers. I didn't hit my groove until my 30s. :) ), I wrote down names like Louise Erdrich and Anne Lamott, Mary Doria Russell and Neil Gaiman, Ursula LeGuin and Kathleen Norris and Nat Goldberg. Books like The Sparrow and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Come to think of it, I may have written those last two down on the very same day, long ago.
The Sparrow was my indoctrination into the world of adult fiction, really. Intense, and sometimes more than I bargained for, but no one could argue it wasn't masterful. Fantastic. Beautiful.
And The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse? Yep, also intense. Also more than I was gunning for at times. And also an unarguably magnificent piece of work. It was my first Louise Erdrich, and it will not be the last.
Someone said lately, when they saw me reading this one, that it was so lovely, but a little hard to keep track of the characters. I would agree completely. There is SO MUCH going on in Erdrich's world. She jumps all over time and space, and expects that you'll grab on tight and ride it out if you deem it worth the ride. Which... it is.
Jess Walter did a similar non-linear thing, writing in and out of so many decades and characters, with Beautiful Ruins, and I distinctly remember a large group of people with whom I was analyzing that work being split right down the middle; the chaos of the novel either endeared or enraged. I wonder now, if that same random group of writers all read Little No Horse, would they have a similar breakdown? Is this, too, a love it or hate it novel, or were they all just wanting books that didn't require anything of them?
I found Jess Walter easy to follow back then, if you were willing to give him just a little bit of headspace to work in, and were willing to take a breather every now and again to recalibrate. I found Louise Erdrich a little harder just now, but I attribute the difference to the intensity of this book. For it is indeed intense. In the end, I only had to really sit down once in a lost and befuddled state. I had to scan back through the previous chapters, searching for the name I knew I should know, but could not place. And then I was back in the saddle.
Erdrich also requires a lot of her readers in terms of language and culture and thought in general. She's a Native American writer, and doesn't water down the Native American experience, or the raw intimacy of the lives she's portraying. It is not a quick read. You have to give it your time, and a bit of yourself. You might want to take on my 2018 Word(s) of the Year: I Don't Know, if you really want to suck everything from the experience!
For the most part, Little No Horse just required a bit more attention than most. You have to make the investment, one that will pay off richly. Erdrich writes in a language all her own, with eloquence and life and a full-bore intensity, and she takes you on a journey that you won't find elsewhere. I'd describe it, but really, I can't. You'll just have to read it.
The Sparrow was my indoctrination into the world of adult fiction, really. Intense, and sometimes more than I bargained for, but no one could argue it wasn't masterful. Fantastic. Beautiful.
And The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse? Yep, also intense. Also more than I was gunning for at times. And also an unarguably magnificent piece of work. It was my first Louise Erdrich, and it will not be the last.
Someone said lately, when they saw me reading this one, that it was so lovely, but a little hard to keep track of the characters. I would agree completely. There is SO MUCH going on in Erdrich's world. She jumps all over time and space, and expects that you'll grab on tight and ride it out if you deem it worth the ride. Which... it is.
Jess Walter did a similar non-linear thing, writing in and out of so many decades and characters, with Beautiful Ruins, and I distinctly remember a large group of people with whom I was analyzing that work being split right down the middle; the chaos of the novel either endeared or enraged. I wonder now, if that same random group of writers all read Little No Horse, would they have a similar breakdown? Is this, too, a love it or hate it novel, or were they all just wanting books that didn't require anything of them?
I found Jess Walter easy to follow back then, if you were willing to give him just a little bit of headspace to work in, and were willing to take a breather every now and again to recalibrate. I found Louise Erdrich a little harder just now, but I attribute the difference to the intensity of this book. For it is indeed intense. In the end, I only had to really sit down once in a lost and befuddled state. I had to scan back through the previous chapters, searching for the name I knew I should know, but could not place. And then I was back in the saddle.
Erdrich also requires a lot of her readers in terms of language and culture and thought in general. She's a Native American writer, and doesn't water down the Native American experience, or the raw intimacy of the lives she's portraying. It is not a quick read. You have to give it your time, and a bit of yourself. You might want to take on my 2018 Word(s) of the Year: I Don't Know, if you really want to suck everything from the experience!
For the most part, Little No Horse just required a bit more attention than most. You have to make the investment, one that will pay off richly. Erdrich writes in a language all her own, with eloquence and life and a full-bore intensity, and she takes you on a journey that you won't find elsewhere. I'd describe it, but really, I can't. You'll just have to read it.
kjboldon's review against another edition
5.0
A moving tale of a singular priest and his effect on an Ojibwe territory called Little No Horse, as well as an investigation into whether a nun there performed miracles. Many characters and shifts back in time made it hard for me to follow sometimes (I consulted the family tree in the front often) but it was a pleasure to read this book, and spend time with these characters, especially Father Damien.