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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
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:
Yes
Having a really hard time rating this one, probably more like 3.5 - I felt really invested from the intro and start of the book and was eager to read it based on the premise, but overall had a hard time following and felt like the author was trying to go too many directions. I loved the mother, Maria’s perspective and Wyatt’s character - would have been happy with a whole book around their narratives. I also liked/was excited to read this book because of the Cherokee folklore intermixed. However despite going in knowing the book was going to be a little supernatural, I still couldn’t really follow Edgar’s storyline and a few other parts.
I wanted to love this book. I really did. But ultimately every piece that was started was left frustratingly unfinished. The integration of myth was not fully integrated throughout the plot, which was also left hanging. The author tried to do too much and ended up doing too little. Finishing this book left me agitated and feeling like I had wasted the day. Would not recommend.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I admire this ambitious book, but wish it had done a little more with a little less. The real Ray-Ray gets too few pages. His death is so far off stage, it's hard for the injustice and tragedy to sink in. Sonja and Maria are not well drawn, Ernest's Alzheimer's doesn't seem real. (At one point, Maria castigates herself for leaving someone with Alzheimer's alone. Well, yeah.) Wyatt seems to be a place holder. I did connect with Edgar and his journey through a hellscape/dreamscape home. That kept me going.
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
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:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"An elder had once taught me not to be afraid of death because there is no death, there is only a change of worlds."
A Cherokee family in Oklahoma, who are struggling to keep it together, prepare to gather for their annual bonfire in honor of their son who was murdered by a police officer 15 years before.
This is my favorite book of 2021. I have read some fabulous fiction this year but nothing stirred my soul quite the way this did. When I finished I was telling my husband about it and he asked if I was sad cuz I wasn't crying (usually my tears stamp the seal of approval). The only response I could come up with was no I'm not sad, I'm flayed. Then I read it again and loved it even more. To miss the Sixth Sense component in this book is to miss half the beauty.
Rotating among four points of view--the mom, the two surviving siblings, and the Great Spirit--Hobson has woven together spiritual realism and raw humanity in a compelling exploration of the lasting bonds of family and the inheritance of generational trauma.
Although her husband is suffering from dementia, her living son is a drug addict, and she has battled with depression since her teenage son was killed, Maria agrees to take in a foster child who provides a link to their lost son in a way they never imagined possible.
The result is one of the most wanting and tender depictions of a family struggling to remain whole when their sanctity and security has been stripped from their bloodline for hundreds of years. Guided by the Great Spirit we are shown how the cycle repeats over and over like a nightmarish and prescient dream.
A topic of conversation lately has been if the need for men to write the female point of view exists in modern-day literature. I have to say if Hobson is the author, it absolutely does. His depiction of these women, both mother and daughter, is realistic and sensitive and strong.
Heavily exploring the thin veil between life and the afterlife, the modern day embodiment of myths and legends, and with characters so real and accessible they feel like friends, this story whispered directly into my heart and filled my soul.
"Death opened like a cave into his body, a passage to somewhere and I entered it, collapsing into him."
A Cherokee family in Oklahoma, who are struggling to keep it together, prepare to gather for their annual bonfire in honor of their son who was murdered by a police officer 15 years before.
This is my favorite book of 2021. I have read some fabulous fiction this year but nothing stirred my soul quite the way this did. When I finished I was telling my husband about it and he asked if I was sad cuz I wasn't crying (usually my tears stamp the seal of approval). The only response I could come up with was no I'm not sad, I'm flayed. Then I read it again and loved it even more. To miss the Sixth Sense component in this book is to miss half the beauty.
Rotating among four points of view--the mom, the two surviving siblings, and the Great Spirit--Hobson has woven together spiritual realism and raw humanity in a compelling exploration of the lasting bonds of family and the inheritance of generational trauma.
Although her husband is suffering from dementia, her living son is a drug addict, and she has battled with depression since her teenage son was killed, Maria agrees to take in a foster child who provides a link to their lost son in a way they never imagined possible.
The result is one of the most wanting and tender depictions of a family struggling to remain whole when their sanctity and security has been stripped from their bloodline for hundreds of years. Guided by the Great Spirit we are shown how the cycle repeats over and over like a nightmarish and prescient dream.
A topic of conversation lately has been if the need for men to write the female point of view exists in modern-day literature. I have to say if Hobson is the author, it absolutely does. His depiction of these women, both mother and daughter, is realistic and sensitive and strong.
Heavily exploring the thin veil between life and the afterlife, the modern day embodiment of myths and legends, and with characters so real and accessible they feel like friends, this story whispered directly into my heart and filled my soul.
"Death opened like a cave into his body, a passage to somewhere and I entered it, collapsing into him."
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
“The Removed” By Brandon Hobson
Years after he son Ray-Ray was killed in a police shooting, Maria attempts to bring her family back together to celebrate his life with an annual bonfire. Her husband and each of her living children are distant in various ways, but the spirit of Ray-Ray seems closer to the surface than ever before and maybe the key to drawing them all back together one more time.
This book was a really interesting reading experience for me, and one that I’m still sorting through how I feel about it. On one hand, each of the narration styles is fantastically written and the base premise of the novel is simple and heartbreaking. On the other hand, it took me a while to really get into the book and some of the storytelling devices feel unclear to me. It could be that I’m missing some knowledge of Indigenous folklore that would have filled in those blanks. All taken together, I think this is a haunting, melancholy read which was a good read despite being confusing for me at times.
Years after he son Ray-Ray was killed in a police shooting, Maria attempts to bring her family back together to celebrate his life with an annual bonfire. Her husband and each of her living children are distant in various ways, but the spirit of Ray-Ray seems closer to the surface than ever before and maybe the key to drawing them all back together one more time.
This book was a really interesting reading experience for me, and one that I’m still sorting through how I feel about it. On one hand, each of the narration styles is fantastically written and the base premise of the novel is simple and heartbreaking. On the other hand, it took me a while to really get into the book and some of the storytelling devices feel unclear to me. It could be that I’m missing some knowledge of Indigenous folklore that would have filled in those blanks. All taken together, I think this is a haunting, melancholy read which was a good read despite being confusing for me at times.