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A review by podanotherjessi
Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
challenging
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This was a very middle of the road book for me. There were some things I really liked, and some things that fell short. A lot of the flaws feel like they could be attributed to this being a debut, and there seems to be a lot of potential here. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for Kobell's next work.
The flaws in this book were unfortunately in pretty big aspects of the work. The mystery itself was pretty good, but there were just too many red herrings. Everyone in the book - from the kids to their parents to the cops to strangers - was a viable suspect. It made everything muddled, and it was hard to get excited at the characters getting close because every lead seemed a dead end. Genuine progress being made had the exact same feel as a misdirect which had the effect of everything losing excitement.
The characters themselves were both one of my favorite and one of my least favorite parts of the book. They all had complex relationships that were really interesting to explore. The feelings that each character had around the missing and murdered characters were similarly well developed, with each one feeling guilt in a variety of ways for surviving or not doing enough.
But none of the characters really change throughout the book. The feelings I had in the first couple chapters were the same as the ones I had at the end. Each character had some secret they were hiding, and I loved finding out what they were, but the reveals never changed anything; it just reinforced what I already thought.
This could be considered a plus for some. It certainly shows a consistency of character that is important in story telling. But for me, it left me a little bored. I wanted to see growth; I wanted to be surprised.
There was one other thing about the book that left me with kind of a weird feeling, and I might be reading too much into it, but it just seemed odd. This book focusses heavily on the specific oppression indigenous women face. This is heavily advertised in the marketing for the book, it's a main theme, and I think it's bringing awareness in a great way.
In the book itself, there are podcast interludes in which this issue is discussed, and in the podcast it's only ever referred to as the MMIW movement, for missing and murdered indigenous women. The first time it came up, I felt weird about the exclusion of two spirit people, something I had commonly heard included in the acronym (the full version being MMIWG2S). But I dismissed the feeling assuming the author maybe had only heard the shortened version or had intentionally chosen the shorter version for simplicity.
But then in both the author's note and the note from the publisher at the end, they refer to the "MMIWG2S movement." Cobell says that it's a hashtag you can look into for more information, along with other hashtags including the shorter MMIW. The publisher's note talks about the importance of bringing attention to the MMIWG2S movement. And this then made it clear Cobell was aware of this option. And it made the very cis-normative language used in the book stand out more.
Ultimately, I don't know if this is something most readers would have noticed or cared about. It didn't affect my rating. But it did leave me with a weird feeling and felt like something that should be mentioned.
The flaws in this book were unfortunately in pretty big aspects of the work. The mystery itself was pretty good, but there were just too many red herrings. Everyone in the book - from the kids to their parents to the cops to strangers - was a viable suspect. It made everything muddled, and it was hard to get excited at the characters getting close because every lead seemed a dead end. Genuine progress being made had the exact same feel as a misdirect which had the effect of everything losing excitement.
The characters themselves were both one of my favorite and one of my least favorite parts of the book. They all had complex relationships that were really interesting to explore. The feelings that each character had around the missing and murdered characters were similarly well developed, with each one feeling guilt in a variety of ways for surviving or not doing enough.
But none of the characters really change throughout the book. The feelings I had in the first couple chapters were the same as the ones I had at the end. Each character had some secret they were hiding, and I loved finding out what they were, but the reveals never changed anything; it just reinforced what I already thought.
This could be considered a plus for some. It certainly shows a consistency of character that is important in story telling. But for me, it left me a little bored. I wanted to see growth; I wanted to be surprised.
There was one other thing about the book that left me with kind of a weird feeling, and I might be reading too much into it, but it just seemed odd. This book focusses heavily on the specific oppression indigenous women face. This is heavily advertised in the marketing for the book, it's a main theme, and I think it's bringing awareness in a great way.
In the book itself, there are podcast interludes in which this issue is discussed, and in the podcast it's only ever referred to as the MMIW movement, for missing and murdered indigenous women. The first time it came up, I felt weird about the exclusion of two spirit people, something I had commonly heard included in the acronym (the full version being MMIWG2S). But I dismissed the feeling assuming the author maybe had only heard the shortened version or had intentionally chosen the shorter version for simplicity.
But then in both the author's note and the note from the publisher at the end, they refer to the "MMIWG2S movement." Cobell says that it's a hashtag you can look into for more information, along with other hashtags including the shorter MMIW. The publisher's note talks about the importance of bringing attention to the MMIWG2S movement. And this then made it clear Cobell was aware of this option. And it made the very cis-normative language used in the book stand out more.
Ultimately, I don't know if this is something most readers would have noticed or cared about. It didn't affect my rating. But it did leave me with a weird feeling and felt like something that should be mentioned.