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3.45 AVERAGE
3.45 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Medan jag läste den här boken om en Native American-familj tänkte jag att recensionen skulle bli rätt neggig. Merparten av kapitlen - som är berättade utifrån olika perspektiv - ogillade jag. Dottern är osympatisk och gör konstiga saker. Sonen är destruktiv och hamnar på ett för mig alldeles för konstigt ställe. "Anden" berättar fint, men lite för långdraget. Egentligen gillar jag bara mamma-figuren (that's a first för mig!), och den mer vardagliga tonen som hennes berättelse håller.
Ingen höjdarupplevelse, överlag.
Men: så här två dagar senare har jag ändå någon slags mjuk, varm känsla inför Hobsons roman. Valet av karaktärer eller händelseförlopp var kanske inte optimalt, men att läsa om ett folk i exil (flera hundra år efter faktum) är ändå alltid omskakande, och inger ödmjukhet.
Så: inte fullt så neggig recensions om jag hade tänkt mig.
Ingen höjdarupplevelse, överlag.
Men: så här två dagar senare har jag ändå någon slags mjuk, varm känsla inför Hobsons roman. Valet av karaktärer eller händelseförlopp var kanske inte optimalt, men att läsa om ett folk i exil (flera hundra år efter faktum) är ändå alltid omskakande, och inger ödmjukhet.
Så: inte fullt så neggig recensions om jag hade tänkt mig.
This was one of those books that I wasn't super into, but discussing it with others made me appreciate it more. I was so excited at one point, because the usual complaint 'this was too depressing' was countered by someone other than me! And they made a great point- they said that this was a good, loving family, doing all of the 'right' things; but disaster came from outside, regardless. And then the parallels to the Trail of Tears came in.
It kind of made me upset that several of them were recommending Tony Hillerman for 'a good Native American read'. I'm trying really hard to center the voices of Native American authors, so I felt like that really went over their heads. The group did not really like it- I think that they found the stories and the symbols to be confusing and difficult to make sense of. I think that's why I liked it- I appreciated how open to interpretation it frequently was. For example, I am confident that one of the characters dies, but everyone in the group was 'relieved' that the character doesn't. Weird. Oh well- glad they read it all of the way through.
It kind of made me upset that several of them were recommending Tony Hillerman for 'a good Native American read'. I'm trying really hard to center the voices of Native American authors, so I felt like that really went over their heads. The group did not really like it- I think that they found the stories and the symbols to be confusing and difficult to make sense of. I think that's why I liked it- I appreciated how open to interpretation it frequently was. For example, I am confident that one of the characters dies, but everyone in the group was 'relieved' that the character doesn't. Weird. Oh well- glad they read it all of the way through.
This is a very fractured narrative, theoretically exploring the pain of a Native American family whose son was shot and killed by the police, but with a distance of 15 years from that event and minimal overt connections across the four protagonist POVs, which stymies the effect for me as a reader. The most emotionally grounded storyline is that of the mother watching as a new foster child seems to improve her husband's slip into Alzheimer's, but their surviving son and daughter are varying degrees of uncomfortable to witness -- he's a drug addict caught up in a weird magical realist journey after a suicide attempt; she's a sex-obsessed stalker who both experiences and perpetrates domestic abuse. All have complicated relationships to the past, but do not share meaningful interactions with one another in the present.
The final narrator is a Cherokee folk hero whose tales are sometimes referenced by the other characters, and his chapters offer a hazily poetic blend of myth and memory that leads to a few striking vignettes but again doesn't tie back much to any larger plot. The whole venture is clearly rooted in #ownvoices experience and history, and when I posted on Goodreads that I was struggling to get into the book, author Brandon Hobson sent me a message saying, "Sorry you're not liking it. It began out of thinking about violence against Natives and dealing with trauma." And that comes through in the finished draft, but it's overall more disjointed and lacking in resolution than I would prefer in a novel.
[Content warning for racism, pedophilia, sexual assault, and homophobic slurs.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
The final narrator is a Cherokee folk hero whose tales are sometimes referenced by the other characters, and his chapters offer a hazily poetic blend of myth and memory that leads to a few striking vignettes but again doesn't tie back much to any larger plot. The whole venture is clearly rooted in #ownvoices experience and history, and when I posted on Goodreads that I was struggling to get into the book, author Brandon Hobson sent me a message saying, "Sorry you're not liking it. It began out of thinking about violence against Natives and dealing with trauma." And that comes through in the finished draft, but it's overall more disjointed and lacking in resolution than I would prefer in a novel.
[Content warning for racism, pedophilia, sexual assault, and homophobic slurs.]
Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Beautifully disjointed storytelling, moving between several narrators dealing with mourning and trauma in different ways as well as the heavy presence of Cherokee myth and spirituality. Semi-plotless. There is at least one twist that felt unnecessary the more I thought about the book. As someone else here wrote, it's "the journey not the destination" kind of book. Audiobook cast was excellent.
I wish I was more invested in the characters but other than that a good read. Loved the Indian backstories