A review by wanderingcurls
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie

5.0

To be honest, it was hard for me to keep my momentum going while reading this memoir, not because I wasn't captivated by Alexie's writing, but because in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the recent allegations against him. Alexie is a gifted writer and he depicted his tumultuous relationship with his mother through vivid and eloquent prose and poetry. I'm also glad that I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian recently because it allowed me to see how much of Alexie's life and circumstances he depicted in his fictional novel. Arnold Spirit had much more in common with Sherman Alexie than I had realized - hydrocephalus, the tragic death of his sister, incessant bullying, the decision to leave his reservation school, and his passion for basketball - and it was interesting to compare the ways these things happened in his real life and Arnold's.