Wow! I really enjoyed this unusual memoir. Unusual in that half of it was his heartfelt poetry (I liked it!) and t have never heard of him before.
He is a Spokane Indian growing up on the "Rez". He is tortured by his unresolved relationship with his mother (now dead). Another associated issue was his mother and grandmother were apparently the result of a rape. A lot of pain, grief and trauma was revealed in these pages. ( )

Very beautifully written and heartbreaking. Not to excuse his actions, but it definitely puts what happened into context. ( )

Towards the end a bit repetitive... but overall interesting. ( )

absolutely beautiful. and heartbreaking. the power. the passion. that Sherman Alexie puts into this book.. i will never forget this one. i cried and i laughed sometimes both at the same time. he is so good at mixing humor with serious topics. Alexie knows how to move you and if you think you don't like poetry, he'll show you that you actually do. he is such a great storyteller and we are all very lucky to have him sharing his stories with us. ( )

Please consider the two-star rating as petty. I hadn't expected the book to clock in at over four hundred pages. A lot of the stories are repeated, which at first is charming, but gets emotionally disorienting after the third time. A large part of my emotional reaction to this book was because I've been reading, analyzing and writing about various works of Alexie's since i was in eighth grade. Nothing works faster to make me dislike reading, than if I have to analyze it. I'm nearly thirty and can remember so clearly what it was like to read various works of his knowing I had an essay due on it in a week. I read the first fifty pages of this and tried so, so hard to snap out of the "The essay must be in Times New Roman twelve font, and don't double-space it!" mode. It didn't work. I wanted to shout at certain points, "I have all my themes! Can I outline now?" I feel so childish admitting that, but these books were deeply rooted into all my schools' curriculums, from eighth grade into college. Part of that is because I'm from Western Washington, and he's well-respected here. I greatly appreciate that now that I'm an adult, but--I've only read two of his works for fun, ever. This was the second. I am sorry for the author's loss, and I do appreciate his success and have learned a lot from his books. ( )