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birdy_bree 's review for:
Indian Burial Ground
by Nick Medina
I will start by saying, I am a Native person who always strives to support fellow Natives and I wanted to like this book. As you can see by my rating, it didn’t live up to my expectations.
Readers follow two characters, Noemi and her Uncle Louie. The chapters are divided between their perspectives, which take place during different times. Truthfully, it took me a long time to realize this. Eventually their timelines come together as they begin looking into Noemi’s boyfriend’s suicide.
The way in which Medina describes alcoholism, suicide, self-harm, addiction, obesity, and harm to animals made me feel more uncomfortable than the real “horror/creepy” portions of the novel. Coming from the perspective of a Native and knowing those are things we, unfortunately, encounter in our home communities, it would make sense for how I felt to be the point.
I do appreciate the focus on the coyote stories in chapter 46. Growing up, Native peoples from specific tribes hear the stories about Coyote and Iktomi the spider. Reflecting on that chapter, there are several moments within this book that point back to some of those stories. Seeing as this comes from several Native cultures, it may be lost on non-Native audiences. Being Native myself, that is one aspect I enjoyed about this novel.
Overall, this novel felt choppy: a slow burn that rarely gains traction... similarly to someone learning to drive a manual transmission and struggling to pull out of first gear. I was close to adding it to my DNF pile. However, I wanted to give it a chance by finishing it.
I greatly prefer Medina’s short story in “Never Whistle At Night”.
Side note: I am not a fan of the audiobook. I had to stop listening to it after the first few chapters. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Gary Farmer. But his strength is not audiobooks. His inflections do not match the punctuation. This made it particularly difficult to follow the story.
Readers follow two characters, Noemi and her Uncle Louie. The chapters are divided between their perspectives, which take place during different times. Truthfully, it took me a long time to realize this. Eventually their timelines come together as they begin looking into Noemi’s boyfriend’s suicide.
The way in which Medina describes alcoholism, suicide, self-harm, addiction, obesity, and harm to animals made me feel more uncomfortable than the real “horror/creepy” portions of the novel. Coming from the perspective of a Native and knowing those are things we, unfortunately, encounter in our home communities, it would make sense for how I felt to be the point.
I do appreciate the focus on the coyote stories in chapter 46. Growing up, Native peoples from specific tribes hear the stories about Coyote and Iktomi the spider. Reflecting on that chapter, there are several moments within this book that point back to some of those stories. Seeing as this comes from several Native cultures, it may be lost on non-Native audiences. Being Native myself, that is one aspect I enjoyed about this novel.
Overall, this novel felt choppy: a slow burn that rarely gains traction... similarly to someone learning to drive a manual transmission and struggling to pull out of first gear. I was close to adding it to my DNF pile. However, I wanted to give it a chance by finishing it.
I greatly prefer Medina’s short story in “Never Whistle At Night”.
Side note: I am not a fan of the audiobook. I had to stop listening to it after the first few chapters. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Gary Farmer. But his strength is not audiobooks. His inflections do not match the punctuation. This made it particularly difficult to follow the story.