The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Reader reviewed by mlecompt

Junior lives on an Indian reservation. He had a problem with his brain when he was born that almost killed him, but her survived and is now merely funny-looking. When he decides that the only way he is going to get anywhere in life is to go to the white school 22 miles away, almost everyone else on the reservation treats him like a pariah, including his best friend.

Parts of this book were very funny and parts were very sad. Alexie describes both the horrible and wonderful parts of life on Junior's reservation. Junior's experience with going to a white school was very believable. Although Junior doesn't have it easy in either of his worlds (white or Indian) he perseveres is a very memorable character.

Reader reviewed by scrappylibrarian

I am a loooooong time fan of Sherman Alexie - his Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a favorite of mine. Any new Sherman Alexie book is worth a celebration, one billed specifically as ya only makes the party bigger.

Loosely based on Alexie's own life, this fictional account of a piece of Junior's life growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation is funny, sad, intelligent, and most of all telling. Telling of being a teen, of being a teen with dreams (cartoons included, yay!), of being a teen with dreams in a place that isn't so great for the fulfillment of dreams.

American Indian issues are not always at the forefront of our minds - there's so much other god-awful stuff going on and its hard to keep all of it going all the time if you want to live a generally optimistic life - but this book put the questions back in mine while in no way being didactic or depressing. And I felt, afterward, I had a much better emotional sense of what is going down on reservations.