A review by robotswithpersonality
A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt

Superb. The eminently frustrating part of reading an author with such a way with words is not being able to convey your admiration in as worthy terms! The characters are searingly alive, yet subtle portraits of struggle, their stories, strains making up the minor chorus, are a mix of heartbreaking and hopeful, joyful, clear testaments, analogues of the realities of Indigenous experience in what is called Canada. This book offered not just a valuable opportunity to reflect on an own voices perspective, but hit a little harder encountering the relatable aspects of the narrator's life, the loneliness of moving away from all family to Edmonton to pursue higher education, being in your 20s and trying to determine how much the seeking of a relationship has to do with shoring up a fragile internal structure, scaffolding for a future fully developed person/version of you, struggling through grad school, trying to cling to whatever you convinced yourself would be that certain outcome of jumping through all the scholastic hoops, even as that appears to be less and less probable. Love the structure and, I cannot state this enough, the WRITING. Please go read it, I'll never do it justice. 

⚠️SA, suicide, police brutality, racism, emotional and physical abuse, discussion of residential schools