The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

    I'm just going to start off by saying that this book was a great read. I picked up this book at my grandpa's house while he was moving out to the nursing home and wanted to read it because it had been on the list of banned books for the banned books reading project last year. I will say that this book does have reasons to be banned in certain areas due to its mature themes of death, grief and some suggestive material.

    The book starts with our main character, a Native American boy named Arnold Spirit who goes by the name of Junior on the reservation where he grew up. He says when he was born his brain had too much grease, so the doctors had to take it out and that messed him up a bit whether it be his horrible eyesight, his lisp and stutter or his skinny body. He lives on the Spokane Indian Reservation with his alcoholic mother and father, sister, grandmother, and many, many cousins. In his free time, he likes to draw comics, play basketball or hang out with his anger issued friend Rowdy. 

    Early on in the book, Arnold realizes that he has no future at the reservation school, Wellpinnit, and wants to go to the school, full of racist white kids, that might give him a future. Leaving to go to Rearden, the white school, creates a lot of conflict between him and other people at the reservation because all of them have been either hurt or criticized by the white community there. This leads to Arnold losing his friendship with Rowdy and creating a strong rivalry between the two basketball teams of the schools. Arnold has to do all this even while dealing with the loss of close family members and close family friends throughout the book.

    Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It read easily and gave a lot of insight on the life of the Native American peoples today. The pacing was fantastic, and the story well thought out. The book was easy to pick up whenever I had time and seemed like it would be perfect for something like a road trip. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested and wish you happy reading.


Alton

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