What I Read -- Born Lucky

I don't believe that I can fairly review this book.  It was written by an old friend of mine, so of course I love it and am incredibly proud of him for telling his story.  I never doubted that he would do great things despite the way he was treated, and I'm looking forward to whatever comes next for him. 

A Simple Act of Violence -- Take 2

Of the mysteries I've read lately looking for a keeper, this one was the most ambitious.

I like the use of multiple perspectives. The two stories start out disparate, and come together as the story moves along.  That was a nice feature.  Not quite an unreliable narrator, but the multiple voices remind you that things aren't always what they seem. 

I did have a few specific complaints during my reading experience. My biggest beef with the craft of his writing is the use of sentence fragments. One here or there is okay, but there were too many, especially closer to the beginning of the book. Maybe they were intended to push the plot along, because once it got going in its own right, there were fewer fragments. But mostly I just found it to be irritating.

There was also missing punctuation, and occasionally a missing word, typically at the end of paragraphs or chapters. This may have been a formatting issue in the publication of the ebook, but it's nevertheless distracting to read.

My biggest frustration, which is entirely my own fault for going into this reading experience blind, was how political this book was.  The backstory is historically political, with the implications running through to the present day.  I'm just not into politics right now, so I wasn't really there for that part of it which, unfortunately was the whole motivation for the "simple act of violence."  Something was lost on me there, but at least it was an engrossing race to the end of the story. 

What I'm Reading Now -- Tangerine

Back in 2021, S and I had planned a trip to Morocco for my birthday.  Unfortunately, about three weeks before we were supposed to leave, there was a big COVID resurgence in Morocco and they closed their borders to foreigners; they even arranged special flights for foreigners who were already there to get out of the country.

So we hurried up and made some other plans.  We found ourselves in Camden, Maine, for my birthday instead.  It's a small town, and in the week-plus that we were there, we did just about everything we could find to do.  One of the things we did -- and this is actually pretty typical of us -- was went shopping for used books.  Normally we do this at used book stores, but at the time we were there, the local public library was having a big used book sale, so we availed ourselves of their overstock.

One of the books I found was Tangerine, which is set in - you guessed it - Morocco.  It was obvious that I had to buy it, right?

I'm still working my way through my 2024 Reading Challenge, and I had selected Tangerine as my September choice: a book set in an intriguing city.  Specifically it's set in the city of Tangier.  So, here we go, finally trying to catch up on what is now more than a year overdue!

Three Day Road -- Take 2

I've had Three Day Road for a long time, probably 15 years.  I only finally read it because I had put it on my 2024 (yes, 2024!) Reading Challenge; it was my December selection: a book with a number in the title. I am sorry it took me so long to get to. 

Let me be clear, it's a dark read.  It's about war and addiction and trauma and loss and aloneness.  It doesn't, or perhaps really can't, do much to rehabilitate what occurred during World War I, but it does make a run at friendship and recovery and healing.

My reading experience has been pretty lacking in the Native American and First Peoples department.  I read Killers of the Flower Moon a few years ago, The Painted Drum, and The Light in the Forest way back in the early grades.  (I don't think The Indian in the Cupboard counts.)  I have a few others on my list: Braiding Sweetgrass and some more Louise Erdrich are high up there.

This all is a way of saying that I don't have much experience with writing about native peoples of the Americas, so I didn't quite know what to expect from Three Day Road.  And even now that I've read it, I'm certainly not qualified to judge the cultural aspects.  I can say, though, that the story is told from two points of view - there's "Nephew" Xavier, who goes off to fight in WWI with his best friend Elijah, and there's "Auntie" Niska, who stays back in the Canadian woods, living in the old way.  The difference in their two outlooks, experiences, and voices is appreciated as a novice to the subject.  More perspectives equal more information, and they both feel genuine and true to their respective characters.

The book opens with Auntie retrieving Xavier at the train station when he returns from war.  Elijah is not with him, and Xavier, who has lost a leg and been shot in the arm, is badly addicted to morphine. Auntie has no idea what has happened to him during the years he was away.  She doesn't know where Elijah is, and Xavier can't bear to think about it.  As the two of them leave the train station and she paddles them back towards home in her canoe, Xavier relives his wartime experiences in flashbacks.  To bring him back to her, Auntie tries to counter his dark daydreams and nightmares with stories from her childhood and his.  But the question remains: what happened to Elijah?  The answer comes out, but I don't want to spoil it for you. 

It took me a little while to get into this one, probably 50 pages, but once I got there, I was hooked.