A review by alisonj
Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age by Darrel J. McLeod

4.0

I find it hard to rate memoirs. If I don’t fully connect with the narrative, but I do feel like it’s a life story worth telling/reading, how many stars do I give? I feel like I'm critiquing a person's life. In this case, I didn’t love the execution of the book, but there’s a lot of important stuff here, largely around the intergenerational trauma stemming from colonialism and residential schools, plus the author’s coming to terms with being a gay man in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of sexual abuse by his brother-in-law and having becoming a born-again Christian. (Side note: points deducted for repeated use of the phrase “lovemaking session.”) A story well worth telling, with some editorial choices that didn't work for me.
3.5*