I bought this book on a camping trip stopover a few years ago. I wanted to read it so badly, but was always waiting for what seemed like the right time; some books are like that for me. It has been sitting in my TBR pile ever since and it finally felt right to read it this last week, a reward for finally finishing a book I really struggled through. It was an excellent reward; I haven’t been this obsessed with finishing a book since […]
This is how you do young adult fiction.
Dammit, I knew I should have written this review when I first finished the book, but I decided to push it off because it seemed too hard to try and sum up all my feeeeelings, but joke’s on me, now it’s even harder! Sherman Alexie has been one of my favorite writers since I was in college and one of my English comp teachers made us watch Smoke Signals, which is based off Alexie’s short story, “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” and […]
Discussion Topics – Book Club Reads The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
We’re two weeks away from our September 1st Book Club conversation about The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I’ve t finished reading it myself, and like many other cannonballers I’m generally quite pleased with this book and what it manages to accomplish in its relatively short page count. You are reading (or rereading) this one aren’t you? As a refresher, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the […]
My CBR8 YA Book Club Review
I didn’t read a lot of YA books when I was, in fact, a young adult. My AP English classes in high school and the Literature classes I took in college focused on the “Classics” and more adult material because we were supposed to be the smart kids. I didn’t read as much in my free time because I always had something to be reading for one class or the other, and when I did read for fun it was a lot of “chick lit” […]
Thanks, CBR book club. I’m glad I read this one.
I was glad that this was the book we chose for the next installment of the CBR book club. I had been meaning to read it for ages. And while it wasn’t what I expected (first off, this book was way more “Y” than I generally expect in a “YA” book), it certainly didn’t disappoint. Arnold “Junior” Spirit lives on a Spokane reservation in rural Washington (I think) with his mother, father, sister, and grandmother. They live in poverty, familiar with hatred and racism, engulfed […]
Should be required reading for everyone
Arnold “Junior” Spirit doesn’t exactly have an easy time of it. Born poor and hydrocephalic, it’s pretty much a miracle that he survived infancy. Suffering from stuttering, his over-large head, bad eyesight and frequent seizures, he’s routinely picked on by both children and adults on the Spokane reservation, finding solace in basketball, his drawing and his best friend Rowdy. When Junior transfers away from the school on the reservation to get a chance at a real education, Rowdy feels deeply betrayed, like Junior’s sold out […]