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A review by erine
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
4.0
I read [b:Elatsoe|49089632|Elatsoe|Darcie Little Badger|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1581002562l/49089632._SX50_.jpg|71388826] at a furious pace and finished after a long night of reading. This took me a few tries and was a long, slow start. Part of my challenge was in the two, very separate, storylines. They eventually intertwine, but it took a long time before I suspected how and even longer before they actually met in the middle. I found it difficult to keep both storylines straight at the beginning. Just to be clear, that's not a criticism. I liked both Oli's exodus from home AND Nina's exploration of her family tree, and once I could see where we were going it was much easier to bounce back and forth.
There's also a sense here of reading a translated book. Darcie Little Badger roots her stories so well in Lipan Apache context, but there are moments when my white mental perception of the story seemed just a hair out of sync. Reading translated literature sometimes feels like the book is shaking out my mental sheets, getting the cobwebs out. And despite being written in English, I had a similar feeling with this story.
Oli is a cottonmouth leaving home, traveling through a dangerous forest, trying to make a life for himself. He slowly makes friends as he explores his new surroundings and learns more about his neighbors. Things are going well until his best friend gets sick, which happens when their animal counterparts on Earth are severely endangered. Nina is a human who loves her family history and the old stories of animal people. When the opportunity to solve a family medical mystery coincides with an opportunity to help a ragtag crew of animal people, she leaps at it.
The action builds slowly and steadily and ends in a fairly satisfying crash of worlds and storylines.
There's also a sense here of reading a translated book. Darcie Little Badger roots her stories so well in Lipan Apache context, but there are moments when my white mental perception of the story seemed just a hair out of sync. Reading translated literature sometimes feels like the book is shaking out my mental sheets, getting the cobwebs out. And despite being written in English, I had a similar feeling with this story.
Oli is a cottonmouth leaving home, traveling through a dangerous forest, trying to make a life for himself. He slowly makes friends as he explores his new surroundings and learns more about his neighbors. Things are going well until his best friend gets sick, which happens when their animal counterparts on Earth are severely endangered. Nina is a human who loves her family history and the old stories of animal people. When the opportunity to solve a family medical mystery coincides with an opportunity to help a ragtag crew of animal people, she leaps at it.
The action builds slowly and steadily and ends in a fairly satisfying crash of worlds and storylines.