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anishinaabekwereads's reviews
183 reviews
Attack of the 50 Foot Indian by Stephen Graham Jones
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
What would happen if a 50 foot Indigenous man was discovered? I bet you can guess exactly what would happen, especially when it comes to US governmental responses.
I really appreciated how Jones leaned into expectations, into fears about Indigeneity, and in particular male Indigeneity. I appreciated how said 50 foot Indian man rebuffs tropes. And mostly I appreciated how Jones discussed Indigenous understandings of how Two Moons, and by extension Indigenous peoples everywhere, are capable of resisting governmental plans.
If you're looking for something quick that calls to mind horror/sci-fi films of yore (but with an unexpected ending), I'd recommend picking this up. It's fast-paced, entertaining, and worth the time.
I really appreciated how Jones leaned into expectations, into fears about Indigeneity, and in particular male Indigeneity. I appreciated how said 50 foot Indian man rebuffs tropes. And mostly I appreciated how Jones discussed Indigenous understandings of how Two Moons, and by extension Indigenous peoples everywhere, are capable of resisting governmental plans.
If you're looking for something quick that calls to mind horror/sci-fi films of yore (but with an unexpected ending), I'd recommend picking this up. It's fast-paced, entertaining, and worth the time.
Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry by Joy Harjo
5.0
Living Nations, Living Words, edited by Joy Harjo (23rd U.S. Poet Laureate) is the kind of poetry anthology I wish I had had access to when I was starting college. It’s no surprise to those of us who follow new releases in Native literature that there have been a number of profoundly different anthologies over the last few years. Shapes of Native Nonfiction, New Poets of Native Nations, and Native Voices represent the kind of accessible anthologies many of us simply couldn’t have imagined when we sat in front of old Norton anthologies ten (okay twelve or so) years ago.
Living Nations opens up space for a wide range of Indigenous voices. Indigiqueer voices can be found within, as can Pasifika and Alaska Native writers, and elder writers. There are some of the most well-known names (Erdrich, Howe, Harjo, Tapahanso) and many who you may not know. There is a tendency perhaps for over representation from certain tribal nations. As a White Earth Ojibwe person, I wasn’t complaining but there were a lot of poets from our nation represented here.
The best part about this collection is that it’s a companion piece to Harjo’s Library Of Congress audio project, which means you can hear the poets reading their work and providing brief discussions that provide additional context for their pieces.
I haven’t been in love with a poetry anthology in a long time and this one feels tremendously important. If you’re looking for new Indigenous poets, pick up this book. If you want to see a diverse representation of craft among Indigenous writers, pick up this book. If you feel like poetry isn’t really your thing, pick up this book. This book is for everyone.
Living Nations opens up space for a wide range of Indigenous voices. Indigiqueer voices can be found within, as can Pasifika and Alaska Native writers, and elder writers. There are some of the most well-known names (Erdrich, Howe, Harjo, Tapahanso) and many who you may not know. There is a tendency perhaps for over representation from certain tribal nations. As a White Earth Ojibwe person, I wasn’t complaining but there were a lot of poets from our nation represented here.
The best part about this collection is that it’s a companion piece to Harjo’s Library Of Congress audio project, which means you can hear the poets reading their work and providing brief discussions that provide additional context for their pieces.
I haven’t been in love with a poetry anthology in a long time and this one feels tremendously important. If you’re looking for new Indigenous poets, pick up this book. If you want to see a diverse representation of craft among Indigenous writers, pick up this book. If you feel like poetry isn’t really your thing, pick up this book. This book is for everyone.
Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Sonia Paoloni, Christian Staebler
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I've been an avid fan of the band Redbone for a long time. As an Indigenous person, I have always been intrigued by their work and their place in popular culture. Coinciding with the height of the Red Power Movement, I have always had a bit of an intellectual interest that expands beyond the affective nature of music.
Redbone is a concise graphic novel. From the outset it is clear that the authors had made a conscious decision to shape this telling of the band's history as a bit of an oral history, a story passed from father and Redbone bandmember Pat Vegas (Vasquez) to his children Frankie and PJ. Bouncing between a restaurant in Los Angeles in the present moment to the 1960s and 1970s, the book does very much feel like a story told to you.
The information in this book takes you through the life of Pat and Lolly Vegas, two of Redbone's founding members, and it also gives the reader crucial insight into Native American history. From boarding schools to the Massacre at Wounded Knee to the 1973 AIM Occupation of Wounded Knee, the reader learns not just about this Native rock band, but also about American history as Indigenous peoples understand it. It's no small feat to make all of these pieces work together in such a short amount of words and yet this book does so.
Finally, as a non-artist, I found the artwork fit really well with the narrative style. I really enjoyed the renderings of historical photographs.
Redbone is a concise graphic novel. From the outset it is clear that the authors had made a conscious decision to shape this telling of the band's history as a bit of an oral history, a story passed from father and Redbone bandmember Pat Vegas (Vasquez) to his children Frankie and PJ. Bouncing between a restaurant in Los Angeles in the present moment to the 1960s and 1970s, the book does very much feel like a story told to you.
The information in this book takes you through the life of Pat and Lolly Vegas, two of Redbone's founding members, and it also gives the reader crucial insight into Native American history. From boarding schools to the Massacre at Wounded Knee to the 1973 AIM Occupation of Wounded Knee, the reader learns not just about this Native rock band, but also about American history as Indigenous peoples understand it. It's no small feat to make all of these pieces work together in such a short amount of words and yet this book does so.
Finally, as a non-artist, I found the artwork fit really well with the narrative style. I really enjoyed the renderings of historical photographs.
Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
**** Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, Orbit. This is an honest review ****
This was my first book from Tade Thompson and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I saw it on NetGalley and was immediately intrigued by the synopsis and requested it. I didn’t really intend to fly through this one so quickly but it was nearly impossible to put down.
Thompson’s Far From the Light of Heaven is a fast-paced murder mystery that takes place on commercial spaceship, Ragtime, which is ferrying its passengers over a 10 year journey to the colony planet Bloodroot. That word colony really left me wondering and I think it's safe to say Thompson really didn’t delve into narratives of conquest or colonization, which was interesting.
This novel was intricate, but also left me wanting more. I craved more explanation for certain things, which weren’t even necessarily consequential to the story, but which sparked my interest in the universe Thompson created. In the afterword, Thompson talks about the tangential nature of writing in general, but especially about space, and how there were pieces left on the cutting room floor. I wanted those pieces, desperately, especially at the end, which felt abrupt.
Speaking of the ending, this one is sure to either make or break this book for people. It didn’t necessarily bother me, but I can see how it might frustrate some readers.
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Let's talk about werewolves that make me want to cry. I'm pretty sure it's a feat unique to Stephen Graham Jones. I don't really do "monster" stories. I never much cared about vampires, never read many werewolf stories. I've never actually watched many werewolf flicks either. This might be why I put off reading Mongrels for so long. I was scared of the potential ambivalence. I shouldn't have been, of course, because SGJ pretty much always delivers for me. And like usual, I was holding back tears by the end.
It's hard to describe this book. It's "horror," but so much more. It's a story about a boy coming of age, about realizing the truth(s) of being a "mixedblood" child raised by (were)wolves. This story is about craving and longing and danger and thrill. It's about stories and survival. And mostly it's about unconditional love and growing up.
This book is bone and blood deep. I had to read it slowly because I dreamed too vividly while reading. As pretty much all of his work has content warnings, be aware of gore, violence, and animal and human death. If you're interested but have been waiting, don't wait any longer. Read this one now.
It's hard to describe this book. It's "horror," but so much more. It's a story about a boy coming of age, about realizing the truth(s) of being a "mixedblood" child raised by (were)wolves. This story is about craving and longing and danger and thrill. It's about stories and survival. And mostly it's about unconditional love and growing up.
This book is bone and blood deep. I had to read it slowly because I dreamed too vividly while reading. As pretty much all of his work has content warnings, be aware of gore, violence, and animal and human death. If you're interested but have been waiting, don't wait any longer. Read this one now.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Death, and Gore
Moderate: Death of parent
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Terminal illness
Moderate: Child death
My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
****Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy for review from Harper Books. This is an honest review.****
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
While Louise Erdrich’s new novel, The Sentence, is about a lot of things, it was, for me, about time. By which, I mean, this book is about the passage of time, the way time stretches and meanders and also catapults us forward. It’s that messy new understanding of time we all have after the past couple of years.
In The Sentence, we follow Tookie, a formerly incarcerated Indigenous woman who received an interminable sentence from “a judge who believed in the afterlife.” Following her release, Tookie begins working at a certain bookstore in Minneapolis and her life goes on, or at least that’s what it seems, until her most annoying customer dies in November of 2019. What follows is a ghost story, a haunting not just by people but by history and our present moment.
As with all of Erdrich’s work, this novel is lush with layered meaning. There’s so much to think through in this story about ghosts, books, sentences, loss, love, and time. It’s also a book that directly asks the reader to deal with traumatic colonial practices of incarcerating Indigenous women, the pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Uprising in Minneapolis.
If you’re from Minneapolis, if you were there during the pandemic and Uprising of May 2020, you will likely know exactly what I mean when I say time became a murky mess and what really mattered most was living in community. Reading this novel brought me back home and did so by making me a witness to Tookie’s story, not merely my own.
If you’re not from Minneapolis, it’s hard to describe the way the summer of 2020 is a specter, residual trauma marking the city in ways that are sometimes unexpected. Yet that haunting also exposes important lessons we all need to keep remembering: this is what violence and dehumanization does and this is the result of community refusing to take any more. Erdrich talks about ghosts as not inherently negative beings, how, in a world that is haunted, particularly by colonialism and enslavement and imperialism, dealing with hauntings is a vital step towards becoming in some small way un-haunted.
I can say emphatically that this book will not be for everyone, even die-hard fans of Erdrich's work. Her craft is as expected, but the content of this novel really requires the reader to engage with the past two years. There are no easy answers and there is a lot of discomfort, but, like all of her catalog, the payoff is immense, emotionally fulfilling, and deeply inspiring.
****Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy for review from Harper Books. This is an honest review.****
Copper Yearning by Kimberly Blaeser
" Sing me again the saga of sin
and separation
of humans and hierarchies;
the ballad of glacial bodies
of many creatures made of water and belief—
the one about transformations
about eons and epics—
these sacred cycles and everyday survivals."
—"Of Eons and Epics" by Kimberly Blaeser in Copper Yearning
I've only read one other collection by Blaeser. I remember reading it and feeling the emotion while also feeling distinctly like I was reading work by someone who knows the craft. You know that way you read poetry and know it's beautiful but also feel like a complete imposter because some of it goes way over your head? That's how I feel about parts of Copper Yearning.
There were sections of this collection that had me wholly invested but there were also many pieces that begged me to go slow, to think, to revisit. If that's how you read poetry, I highly recommend this collection. Filled with family, memories, connections and belongings, environments, and colonialism, and violences, Blaeser has crafted an emotive experience in Copper Yearning and I fully intend to go back to this one again.
and separation
of humans and hierarchies;
the ballad of glacial bodies
of many creatures made of water and belief—
the one about transformations
about eons and epics—
these sacred cycles and everyday survivals."
—"Of Eons and Epics" by Kimberly Blaeser in Copper Yearning
I've only read one other collection by Blaeser. I remember reading it and feeling the emotion while also feeling distinctly like I was reading work by someone who knows the craft. You know that way you read poetry and know it's beautiful but also feel like a complete imposter because some of it goes way over your head? That's how I feel about parts of Copper Yearning.
There were sections of this collection that had me wholly invested but there were also many pieces that begged me to go slow, to think, to revisit. If that's how you read poetry, I highly recommend this collection. Filled with family, memories, connections and belongings, environments, and colonialism, and violences, Blaeser has crafted an emotive experience in Copper Yearning and I fully intend to go back to this one again.
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix reads very campy. Another homage to the slasher genre, this one leans VERY heavy into slasher fandom knowledge. In a lot of ways, I think Hendrix's attempt was more accessible to those of us not so well-versed in final girls and monsters. It's fast-paced, more up-front about what's happening. And it also reads less...well scary.
We follow Lynette, a final girl who doesn't view herself as a real final girl, who has spent decades traumatized despite her monthly final girl support group. When someone starts trying to take out her fellow final girls, she alone believes it's a sign of something much bigger than any one of them. Did I say final girl enough yet?
This wasn't the perfect book by any means. Points throughout felt very on-the-nose about gendered violence and yet still felt like they weren't actually saying anything substantive. Many characters felt underdeveloped but acted like they wanted to be fully developed (despite their differences I kept getting some of them mixed up until the last 50 pages). There were few twists and turns I didn't see coming. And any time a horror novel unabashedly and uncritically brings up Indian burial grounds, Indian "legends," or basically makes us dead for the sake of a couple throw-away scenes I'm usually out. Many reviewers have said this would be better as a movie and they're not wrong. But still, I found something incredibly compelling and exciting about this novel.
It was the kind of horror novel that felt like a good addition to a summer spent reading some really tense things. I think it's movie-like quality, its camp made it hard to put down.
We follow Lynette, a final girl who doesn't view herself as a real final girl, who has spent decades traumatized despite her monthly final girl support group. When someone starts trying to take out her fellow final girls, she alone believes it's a sign of something much bigger than any one of them. Did I say final girl enough yet?
This wasn't the perfect book by any means. Points throughout felt very on-the-nose about gendered violence and yet still felt like they weren't actually saying anything substantive. Many characters felt underdeveloped but acted like they wanted to be fully developed (despite their differences I kept getting some of them mixed up until the last 50 pages). There were few twists and turns I didn't see coming. And any time a horror novel unabashedly and uncritically brings up Indian burial grounds, Indian "legends," or basically makes us dead for the sake of a couple throw-away scenes I'm usually out. Many reviewers have said this would be better as a movie and they're not wrong. But still, I found something incredibly compelling and exciting about this novel.
It was the kind of horror novel that felt like a good addition to a summer spent reading some really tense things. I think it's movie-like quality, its camp made it hard to put down.