Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Cracking good read, 04 Sep 2008
Alexie is an American Indian and when he writes of reservations and the poverty and the alcoholism that plague them, he is writing from his own experiences. This is a novel about those at the very bottom of the American social order, the dispossessed indigenous people who have a per capita income lower than any other racial group in the country. He doesn't tell you this in so many words, but he makes the social position of the Native Americans very, very plain. He has an astonishing knack for explaining not only how but also why things have gone so drastically awry for them.

This novel is a slightly whacky tale about the varied adventures of a blues band from the Spokane Indian Reservation. It should, given its backdrop, be depressing, but it's not: it's very funny. I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters and then, one line later, being painfully clouted right in the emotional solar plexus. The characters, as American Indians really do, live in two worlds at once: the modern one and, jarring with it in sometimes quite mind-bending ways, that of their own historical and cultural background. Alexie, quite without preaching, mildly and even wittily shows the reader why so many Indians turn to the bottle, run back to the rez after trying out the modern world and misuse power when it does come into their hands. It's heartbreaking.

This delivered the sort of emotional twanging very few books deliver. I'd have liked a bit more in the way of description and scene-setting, and (I don't often feel this way about a book) I would have liked it to be a little bit longer, to fill things out a trifle more. These are fairly minor quibbles: better a bit too short than rather too long.

There'll be another Alexie in my next Amazon order. I'm hooked.

like nothing you've read, 10 Sep 2007
Alexie Sherman is a brilliant and clever storyteller. He weaves the real cause of bullying, and the politics and awfulness of the creation of indian reservations and does it in such a way that if you just want to read the story you can, and it is a great story. Clever. The characters are so strong and the imagery has meant that two days later I'm still on that reservation and in that faithful blue van and hoping Thomas Builds-the-Fire has a happy life beyond the book!

the horses screamed, 28 Aug 2003
I have read some terrific novels recently, by the likes of Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and the great Walter Mosley; but I was not prepared for the sad beauty, edgy high spirits and mystical shadings of Sherman Alexie`s small masterpiece.
A brief review cannot hope to do such a rich, unusual, profoundly moving book the justice it deserves.
An elderly, `undead` Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who `sold his soul to the devil` to play better than any other guitarist, arrives `at the crossroad` (naturally!) in the Spokane reservation in Washington state. He is met by the gentle Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who directs the tortured bluesman to Big Momma on the hill who acts as a kind of fallible earth-momma come witch-woman throughout the book, and is the only one who can cure what ails Johnson. However, when he goes up the hill he leaves his guitar behind...
Said guitar has a mind and music of its own. Thomas forms a band with his ne`er-do-well friends plus a captivating couple of sisters name of Chess and Chequers. They hit the road. That`s when a whole lot of trouble starts - but a whole lot of redemption too.
That`s all I`m going to give away. But one thing I want to emphasise is that, though this wonderful novel may make you want to cry in places, it sure as hell will make you laugh. Alexie has a fine, unsentimental ear, and doesn`t for a moment indulge in the `noble Indian` myth. The perhaps paradoxical result is that Reservation Blues shows its varied, rounded, utterly believable characters (even the `supernatural` ones) in a bravely human, likable and - ultimately, because so human - noble light.
This is a unique work. I`m glad it`s in my life. Read it! Oh, and the screaming horses? As I say, read it...

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Cracking good read, 04 Sep 2008
Alexie is an American Indian and when he writes of reservations and the poverty and the alcoholism that plague them, he is writing from his own experiences. This is a novel about those at the very bottom of the American social order, the dispossessed indigenous people who have a per capita income lower than any other racial group in the country. He doesn't tell you this in so many words, but he makes the social position of the Native Americans very, very plain. He has an astonishing knack for explaining not only how but also why things have gone so drastically awry for them.

This novel is a slightly whacky tale about the varied adventures of a blues band from the Spokane Indian Reservation. It should, given its backdrop, be depressing, but it's not: it's very funny. I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters and then, one line later, being painfully clouted right in the emotional solar plexus. The characters, as American Indians really do, live in two worlds at once: the modern one and, jarring with it in sometimes quite mind-bending ways, that of their own historical and cultural background. Alexie, quite without preaching, mildly and even wittily shows the reader why so many Indians turn to the bottle, run back to the rez after trying out the modern world and misuse power when it does come into their hands. It's heartbreaking.

This delivered the sort of emotional twanging very few books deliver. I'd have liked a bit more in the way of description and scene-setting, and (I don't often feel this way about a book) I would have liked it to be a little bit longer, to fill things out a trifle more. These are fairly minor quibbles: better a bit too short than rather too long.

There'll be another Alexie in my next Amazon order. I'm hooked.

like nothing you've read, 10 Sep 2007
Alexie Sherman is a brilliant and clever storyteller. He weaves the real cause of bullying, and the politics and awfulness of the creation of indian reservations and does it in such a way that if you just want to read the story you can, and it is a great story. Clever. The characters are so strong and the imagery has meant that two days later I'm still on that reservation and in that faithful blue van and hoping Thomas Builds-the-Fire has a happy life beyond the book!

the horses screamed, 28 Aug 2003
I have read some terrific novels recently, by the likes of Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and the great Walter Mosley; but I was not prepared for the sad beauty, edgy high spirits and mystical shadings of Sherman Alexie`s small masterpiece.
A brief review cannot hope to do such a rich, unusual, profoundly moving book the justice it deserves.
An elderly, `undead` Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who `sold his soul to the devil` to play better than any other guitarist, arrives `at the crossroad` (naturally!) in the Spokane reservation in Washington state. He is met by the gentle Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who directs the tortured bluesman to Big Momma on the hill who acts as a kind of fallible earth-momma come witch-woman throughout the book, and is the only one who can cure what ails Johnson. However, when he goes up the hill he leaves his guitar behind...
Said guitar has a mind and music of its own. Thomas forms a band with his ne`er-do-well friends plus a captivating couple of sisters name of Chess and Chequers. They hit the road. That`s when a whole lot of trouble starts - but a whole lot of redemption too.
That`s all I`m going to give away. But one thing I want to emphasise is that, though this wonderful novel may make you want to cry in places, it sure as hell will make you laugh. Alexie has a fine, unsentimental ear, and doesn`t for a moment indulge in the `noble Indian` myth. The perhaps paradoxical result is that Reservation Blues shows its varied, rounded, utterly believable characters (even the `supernatural` ones) in a bravely human, likable and - ultimately, because so human - noble light.
This is a unique work. I`m glad it`s in my life. Read it! Oh, and the screaming horses? As I say, read it...

Stories that make you think., 04 Mar 2004
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Stories that make you think., 16 Jan 2003
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Simply excellent ..., 22 Apr 2001
I bought this book after reading a review in the Saturday Times and I certainly did not regret it. This is a beautiful collection of short stories exploring contemporary American Indian characters. Very funny at times, but moving all of the time. My favorite: the haunting tale of 'Sin Eaters'. This is one of those rare books which I will read again, but for now I just look forward to reading more of Sherman Alexie's work.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Cracking good read, 04 Sep 2008
Alexie is an American Indian and when he writes of reservations and the poverty and the alcoholism that plague them, he is writing from his own experiences. This is a novel about those at the very bottom of the American social order, the dispossessed indigenous people who have a per capita income lower than any other racial group in the country. He doesn't tell you this in so many words, but he makes the social position of the Native Americans very, very plain. He has an astonishing knack for explaining not only how but also why things have gone so drastically awry for them.

This novel is a slightly whacky tale about the varied adventures of a blues band from the Spokane Indian Reservation. It should, given its backdrop, be depressing, but it's not: it's very funny. I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters and then, one line later, being painfully clouted right in the emotional solar plexus. The characters, as American Indians really do, live in two worlds at once: the modern one and, jarring with it in sometimes quite mind-bending ways, that of their own historical and cultural background. Alexie, quite without preaching, mildly and even wittily shows the reader why so many Indians turn to the bottle, run back to the rez after trying out the modern world and misuse power when it does come into their hands. It's heartbreaking.

This delivered the sort of emotional twanging very few books deliver. I'd have liked a bit more in the way of description and scene-setting, and (I don't often feel this way about a book) I would have liked it to be a little bit longer, to fill things out a trifle more. These are fairly minor quibbles: better a bit too short than rather too long.

There'll be another Alexie in my next Amazon order. I'm hooked.

like nothing you've read, 10 Sep 2007
Alexie Sherman is a brilliant and clever storyteller. He weaves the real cause of bullying, and the politics and awfulness of the creation of indian reservations and does it in such a way that if you just want to read the story you can, and it is a great story. Clever. The characters are so strong and the imagery has meant that two days later I'm still on that reservation and in that faithful blue van and hoping Thomas Builds-the-Fire has a happy life beyond the book!

the horses screamed, 28 Aug 2003
I have read some terrific novels recently, by the likes of Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and the great Walter Mosley; but I was not prepared for the sad beauty, edgy high spirits and mystical shadings of Sherman Alexie`s small masterpiece.
A brief review cannot hope to do such a rich, unusual, profoundly moving book the justice it deserves.
An elderly, `undead` Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who `sold his soul to the devil` to play better than any other guitarist, arrives `at the crossroad` (naturally!) in the Spokane reservation in Washington state. He is met by the gentle Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who directs the tortured bluesman to Big Momma on the hill who acts as a kind of fallible earth-momma come witch-woman throughout the book, and is the only one who can cure what ails Johnson. However, when he goes up the hill he leaves his guitar behind...
Said guitar has a mind and music of its own. Thomas forms a band with his ne`er-do-well friends plus a captivating couple of sisters name of Chess and Chequers. They hit the road. That`s when a whole lot of trouble starts - but a whole lot of redemption too.
That`s all I`m going to give away. But one thing I want to emphasise is that, though this wonderful novel may make you want to cry in places, it sure as hell will make you laugh. Alexie has a fine, unsentimental ear, and doesn`t for a moment indulge in the `noble Indian` myth. The perhaps paradoxical result is that Reservation Blues shows its varied, rounded, utterly believable characters (even the `supernatural` ones) in a bravely human, likable and - ultimately, because so human - noble light.
This is a unique work. I`m glad it`s in my life. Read it! Oh, and the screaming horses? As I say, read it...

Stories that make you think., 04 Mar 2004
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Stories that make you think., 16 Jan 2003
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Simply excellent ..., 22 Apr 2001
I bought this book after reading a review in the Saturday Times and I certainly did not regret it. This is a beautiful collection of short stories exploring contemporary American Indian characters. Very funny at times, but moving all of the time. My favorite: the haunting tale of 'Sin Eaters'. This is one of those rare books which I will read again, but for now I just look forward to reading more of Sherman Alexie's work.

Spotty lad fights back, 29 Jun 2008
This is a book that takes off at a run and spins you along in its wake. I don't think it's a book for everyone - it got some quite mixed reviews - but I thought it was exceptional: witty, intense, fast-paced, and extremely thoughtful, with some very dark humour (the t-shirt saying, 'Fighting terrorism since 1492').

It starts with a teenaged boy - an angry, anti-social, abused teenaged boy - examining his acne in the mirror in yet another foster home. He's so spotty that he calls himself Zits: we only find out his real name at the very end of the book. His mother died when he was a young child and his Native American father never acknowledged him. He's been passed from pillar to post for a decade. He's a runaway, an arsonist, a spanner in the works. A few pages along, and he's about to commit mass murder in the lobby of a bank.

And then... he starts time travelling. First stop, an Indian reservation in the mid 1970s; second stop, Custer's Last Stand; third stop... and so it goes. Each time, he's in the head of one of the characters: he's an FBI man, an Indian child, a flying instructor and various others.

From all of this he learns about betrayal and revenge and, oddly enough, forgiveness. You might read this book and say the ending is just too neat to be credible, but it moved me and gripped me to the very last word.

Sherman Alexie, a gifted poet and storyteller, ploughs familiar yet fertile ground in Ten Little Indians, his third collection of short stories. The book contains nine stories populated by at least one American Indian (usually of Alexie's Spokane heritage, and mostly living in Seattle), but "little" is a bit of a misnomer; the book addresses human (not necessarily Indian) rituals, ceremony, love, loss, insecurity over life choices and personal sacrifices. A lot of intense basketball is played, too.

When Alexie is at his best, his stories function at a profoundly sad level, where broken down characters are broken down even more, but are fierce-willed enough to attempt Phoenix-like transitions. Unfortunately, the weakest stories appear first, where characters and situations seem far too contrived or forced, the dialogue wooden and questions or exclamatory sentences appear annoyingly in bunches. In the last half of the book, a married couple, once intensely in love but now lost in life's routines, deal with infidelity ("Do You Know Where I Am?"); a bright basketball prospect attempts a comeback, 20 years after giving up the game ("Whatever Happened to Frank Snake Church?"); and a transient Indian finds his grandmother's regalia in a pawn shop and seeks to quickly raise the lofty purchase price ("What You Pawn I Will Redeem").

Brilliant turns of phrase abound, such as ceremonies being "pitiful cries to a disinterested God," or when a gym rat plays against "Basketball-Democrats who came to the court alone and ran with anybody and Basketball-Republicans who traveled in groups of five and only ran with each other." Ten Little Indians is an uneven collection but it contains some significant and memorable stories. --Michael Ferch, Amazon.com

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Cracking good read, 04 Sep 2008
Alexie is an American Indian and when he writes of reservations and the poverty and the alcoholism that plague them, he is writing from his own experiences. This is a novel about those at the very bottom of the American social order, the dispossessed indigenous people who have a per capita income lower than any other racial group in the country. He doesn't tell you this in so many words, but he makes the social position of the Native Americans very, very plain. He has an astonishing knack for explaining not only how but also why things have gone so drastically awry for them.

This novel is a slightly whacky tale about the varied adventures of a blues band from the Spokane Indian Reservation. It should, given its backdrop, be depressing, but it's not: it's very funny. I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters and then, one line later, being painfully clouted right in the emotional solar plexus. The characters, as American Indians really do, live in two worlds at once: the modern one and, jarring with it in sometimes quite mind-bending ways, that of their own historical and cultural background. Alexie, quite without preaching, mildly and even wittily shows the reader why so many Indians turn to the bottle, run back to the rez after trying out the modern world and misuse power when it does come into their hands. It's heartbreaking.

This delivered the sort of emotional twanging very few books deliver. I'd have liked a bit more in the way of description and scene-setting, and (I don't often feel this way about a book) I would have liked it to be a little bit longer, to fill things out a trifle more. These are fairly minor quibbles: better a bit too short than rather too long.

There'll be another Alexie in my next Amazon order. I'm hooked.

like nothing you've read, 10 Sep 2007
Alexie Sherman is a brilliant and clever storyteller. He weaves the real cause of bullying, and the politics and awfulness of the creation of indian reservations and does it in such a way that if you just want to read the story you can, and it is a great story. Clever. The characters are so strong and the imagery has meant that two days later I'm still on that reservation and in that faithful blue van and hoping Thomas Builds-the-Fire has a happy life beyond the book!

the horses screamed, 28 Aug 2003
I have read some terrific novels recently, by the likes of Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and the great Walter Mosley; but I was not prepared for the sad beauty, edgy high spirits and mystical shadings of Sherman Alexie`s small masterpiece.
A brief review cannot hope to do such a rich, unusual, profoundly moving book the justice it deserves.
An elderly, `undead` Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who `sold his soul to the devil` to play better than any other guitarist, arrives `at the crossroad` (naturally!) in the Spokane reservation in Washington state. He is met by the gentle Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who directs the tortured bluesman to Big Momma on the hill who acts as a kind of fallible earth-momma come witch-woman throughout the book, and is the only one who can cure what ails Johnson. However, when he goes up the hill he leaves his guitar behind...
Said guitar has a mind and music of its own. Thomas forms a band with his ne`er-do-well friends plus a captivating couple of sisters name of Chess and Chequers. They hit the road. That`s when a whole lot of trouble starts - but a whole lot of redemption too.
That`s all I`m going to give away. But one thing I want to emphasise is that, though this wonderful novel may make you want to cry in places, it sure as hell will make you laugh. Alexie has a fine, unsentimental ear, and doesn`t for a moment indulge in the `noble Indian` myth. The perhaps paradoxical result is that Reservation Blues shows its varied, rounded, utterly believable characters (even the `supernatural` ones) in a bravely human, likable and - ultimately, because so human - noble light.
This is a unique work. I`m glad it`s in my life. Read it! Oh, and the screaming horses? As I say, read it...

Stories that make you think., 04 Mar 2004
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Stories that make you think., 16 Jan 2003
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Simply excellent ..., 22 Apr 2001
I bought this book after reading a review in the Saturday Times and I certainly did not regret it. This is a beautiful collection of short stories exploring contemporary American Indian characters. Very funny at times, but moving all of the time. My favorite: the haunting tale of 'Sin Eaters'. This is one of those rare books which I will read again, but for now I just look forward to reading more of Sherman Alexie's work.

Spotty lad fights back, 29 Jun 2008
This is a book that takes off at a run and spins you along in its wake. I don't think it's a book for everyone - it got some quite mixed reviews - but I thought it was exceptional: witty, intense, fast-paced, and extremely thoughtful, with some very dark humour (the t-shirt saying, 'Fighting terrorism since 1492').

It starts with a teenaged boy - an angry, anti-social, abused teenaged boy - examining his acne in the mirror in yet another foster home. He's so spotty that he calls himself Zits: we only find out his real name at the very end of the book. His mother died when he was a young child and his Native American father never acknowledged him. He's been passed from pillar to post for a decade. He's a runaway, an arsonist, a spanner in the works. A few pages along, and he's about to commit mass murder in the lobby of a bank.

And then... he starts time travelling. First stop, an Indian reservation in the mid 1970s; second stop, Custer's Last Stand; third stop... and so it goes. Each time, he's in the head of one of the characters: he's an FBI man, an Indian child, a flying instructor and various others.

From all of this he learns about betrayal and revenge and, oddly enough, forgiveness. You might read this book and say the ending is just too neat to be credible, but it moved me and gripped me to the very last word.

Beautiful and funny, 03 Dec 2008
Sherman Alexie is one of my favourite writers. These stories are moving, humorous, occasionally surreal and always humane. I didn't want to leave the company of any of the fascinating characters.

Read it!, 08 Jan 2005
I Brought this book on a whim, and I'm glad I did! These brilliantly written and well-observed stories have such a strong voice within all of them. Alexie seems to be able to write a Spokane 19 year old female college student to a gay wrestler with apparent ease, turning a phrase that had me laughing on the bus home from work without shame.

Interracial relationships, politics, sexism, racism and homosexuality are all written as if in passing, and flaws within American society are held up for criticism.

There really is a direct voice of cultural identity here; I am neither American or American Indian, but an outsider looking in to a writer creating characters who are all suffering from a floundering search as to what they are. And yes, it made me break my illusions of cultural stereotypes that society and media gave me (lets blame both, everyone else does)concerning the Native Americans.

Good read, whatever your sexual inclination, race or age.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 10 Oct 2008
I'll admit -- I put off reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN for well over a year, in favor of more "exciting" books. Boy, what a mistake I made!

Told from the perspective of thirteen-year-old Arnold Spirit, an intelligent, observant, sarcastic Indian born with encephalitis and a love of cartooning, Sherman Alexie takes us along with him as he moves away from a circumscribed, oppressive life on the Spokane reservation towards a more promising future by attending an all-white school thirty miles away.

Never one to get bogged down in sentiment or self-pity, Mr. Alexie refuses to present Arnold's friends and family as one-dimensional stereotypes, nor is the world beyond "rez" borders portrayed as the Great White Hope. Arnold's family has problems, to be sure: an alcoholic father, an enabling, codependent mother; a near shut-in older sister. But their love for each other is evident through their words and actions. And despite the ostracism and ridicule heaped upon him by former friends and other tribe members, Arnold reacts with biting wit rather than total despair.

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read in my life, so I hope everyone gives it a try.

Reviewed by: Cat

Read this NOW!, 02 Oct 2008
Absolutely fantastic! I can't recommend this book enough. It will have you laughing hysterically and sobbing, one within seconds of the other. A cliche, I know, but for once it really is true!

Surprising!, 05 Sep 2008
This is the first book i have read by Sherman Alexie and will make sure it is not the last! An inciteful read following a Native American teenager's struggle to fulfil his ambitions and to find his place in the US today.

Sherman writes in a matter-of-fact, simple style which lends authenticity to the words on the page and allows the reader into the mind of the young Arnold.

The book even made me laugh out loud which, in my case, hardly ever happens!

To the British reader, the book gives real incite into the 21st century's Native American society and racial tension without appearing indulgent or bias.

If you are looking for quirky, but not mind-bafflingly so, READ THIS BOOK!

Amazing book--razor sharp and totally on point, 14 Sep 2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is the first book written by Sherman Alexie specifically for a young adult audience. I finished it in two days but have been holding onto my copy because I've been having a hard time articulating why I might love this book.

If you have read anything by Alexie, you know that he writes about life on the Spokane Indian reservation in Washingotn. In Reservation Blues Alexie described the misadventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and his friends as they try to start a band (and deal with the relative fame that follows). Like Reservation Blues, this novel is filled with equal parts humor and tragedy along with some memorable characters thrown in to taste. What surprised me about Diary is that it is also more biting that Reservation Blues. At times Alexie's descriptions of white-Indian relations and life on the rez are so scathing that they're painful to read. And yet . . . I couldn't put the book down.

Now that you are sufficiently intrigued, let's talk about the plot.

This story revolves around Arnold "Junior" Spirit, his family and his best friend, Rowdy. We join Arnold at the beginning of the novel at the age of 14. Born with a variety of physical ailments, Arnold is used to being picked on. He doesn't mind, though, because he knows he has his art and his intelligence and his family. Things get complicated for Arnold when he realizes that he has to leave the reservation in order to get a good education and succeed where most of his family and friends have failed. So Arnold starts going to the all-white school in a neighboring all-white town.

As the story progresses, Arnold grapples with his decision and trying to figure out his identity in his new surroundings. With the additions of love, rivalry, and basketball Alexie has enough twists to keep the most impatient readers enthralled. The illustrations by Ellen Forney also really add to the text.

In Reservation Blues and some of his other works, Alexie brings up the issue of alcoholism and heavy drinking on the reservation. The subject comes up again here. I can't say that I understand heavy drinking as a past time in general-it remains equally perplexing here. At the same time, Alexie aptly shows the damage that one too many bottles of . . . whatever . . . can cause, which is part of why I think this novel is really important.

But you won't be reading this book just because I happen to think it's important. No. I expect that you will find yourself charmed by Arnold and his unique outlook on life and opportunity. I know I did.

Like Alexie's other writing, this book is poetic and beautiful but still razor sharp.

When I finished reading, I didn't know what to say-so much so that I wanted to immediately re-read it. (It's the kind of book that you can do that with.) I think that's the best response you can have to a book: when it's so good it leaves you speechless.

My favourite book of all time, 28 Feb 2008
Please, please, please do yourself a favour and read this book. I'm serious. I can't possibly express how wonderful, funny, heartbreaking, powerful, devastating and beautiful it is in my own words in such a small review space. Just, please, read it.

a brilliant book of modern american indian life., 09 Apr 2001
with this collection of short stories, sherman alexie has put together a classic book. this is very witty, funny and sad at the same time. this is truly a great insight into modern american indian life (sherman alexie refuses to be called native american). many of these tales are autobiographical and alexie impresses the reader more and more with each story. this is a great book, definately 5 stars.

bittersweet stories of survival, 12 Feb 2001
These stories pack a punch. All set on the Spokane Indian reservation and involving the same characters- Victor, Thomas Builds-A-Fire, Junior Polatkin- the tales are of basketball, of drunkeness, of fry bread, despair and hope. Thomas Builds-A-Fire tells stories, often to himself when no one else wants to listen. Victor travels to Arizona to dispose of his father's remains, remembering how he was abandoned as a youth. Victor remembers sleeping between his parents, passed out from alcohol, which was comforting to him as a child. Victor and Junior reminisce about the great reservation basketball players, some having gained eternal fame from a single, well-placed shot across the court. These stories sometimes go by in a haze of drunkenness, in the anger of a modern Native American- but all will surely touch you to the core. Each story made me stop and think for hours afterwards, and they clutched my heart. They are beautiful and devastating, some of the most poignant and powerful stories I have read in a long time.

Cracking good read, 04 Sep 2008
Alexie is an American Indian and when he writes of reservations and the poverty and the alcoholism that plague them, he is writing from his own experiences. This is a novel about those at the very bottom of the American social order, the dispossessed indigenous people who have a per capita income lower than any other racial group in the country. He doesn't tell you this in so many words, but he makes the social position of the Native Americans very, very plain. He has an astonishing knack for explaining not only how but also why things have gone so drastically awry for them.

This novel is a slightly whacky tale about the varied adventures of a blues band from the Spokane Indian Reservation. It should, given its backdrop, be depressing, but it's not: it's very funny. I found myself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters and then, one line later, being painfully clouted right in the emotional solar plexus. The characters, as American Indians really do, live in two worlds at once: the modern one and, jarring with it in sometimes quite mind-bending ways, that of their own historical and cultural background. Alexie, quite without preaching, mildly and even wittily shows the reader why so many Indians turn to the bottle, run back to the rez after trying out the modern world and misuse power when it does come into their hands. It's heartbreaking.

This delivered the sort of emotional twanging very few books deliver. I'd have liked a bit more in the way of description and scene-setting, and (I don't often feel this way about a book) I would have liked it to be a little bit longer, to fill things out a trifle more. These are fairly minor quibbles: better a bit too short than rather too long.

There'll be another Alexie in my next Amazon order. I'm hooked.

like nothing you've read, 10 Sep 2007
Alexie Sherman is a brilliant and clever storyteller. He weaves the real cause of bullying, and the politics and awfulness of the creation of indian reservations and does it in such a way that if you just want to read the story you can, and it is a great story. Clever. The characters are so strong and the imagery has meant that two days later I'm still on that reservation and in that faithful blue van and hoping Thomas Builds-the-Fire has a happy life beyond the book!

the horses screamed, 28 Aug 2003
I have read some terrific novels recently, by the likes of Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and the great Walter Mosley; but I was not prepared for the sad beauty, edgy high spirits and mystical shadings of Sherman Alexie`s small masterpiece.
A brief review cannot hope to do such a rich, unusual, profoundly moving book the justice it deserves.
An elderly, `undead` Robert Johnson, the legendary blues singer who `sold his soul to the devil` to play better than any other guitarist, arrives `at the crossroad` (naturally!) in the Spokane reservation in Washington state. He is met by the gentle Thomas Builds-the-Fire, who directs the tortured bluesman to Big Momma on the hill who acts as a kind of fallible earth-momma come witch-woman throughout the book, and is the only one who can cure what ails Johnson. However, when he goes up the hill he leaves his guitar behind...
Said guitar has a mind and music of its own. Thomas forms a band with his ne`er-do-well friends plus a captivating couple of sisters name of Chess and Chequers. They hit the road. That`s when a whole lot of trouble starts - but a whole lot of redemption too.
That`s all I`m going to give away. But one thing I want to emphasise is that, though this wonderful novel may make you want to cry in places, it sure as hell will make you laugh. Alexie has a fine, unsentimental ear, and doesn`t for a moment indulge in the `noble Indian` myth. The perhaps paradoxical result is that Reservation Blues shows its varied, rounded, utterly believable characters (even the `supernatural` ones) in a bravely human, likable and - ultimately, because so human - noble light.
This is a unique work. I`m glad it`s in my life. Read it! Oh, and the screaming horses? As I say, read it...

Stories that make you think., 04 Mar 2004
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Stories that make you think., 16 Jan 2003
Sherman Alexie's narratives in "The Toughest Indian in the World" combine the author's matter-of-fact, understated style with his edgy humor, irony and passion. The result is a collection of short stories (with numerous subplots) which will always make you think, sometimes make you laugh, and sometimes make you get angry. Alexie's heroes come from different tribes and all walks of life, but whether they themselves like it or not, they are all Indian - not: "Native American." ("You ain't Indian," the Spokane father of a Spokane student thrown out of class over the question "What is an Indian?" tells his son's mixed-race professor in "One Good Man." "No. You might be a Native American but you sure as hell ain't Indian.") Not all of these stories are light fare - "The Sin Eaters," which reflects on the darkest chapters of American Indian history, is strongly reminiscent of Huxley's "Brave New World." (Not recommended reading before you go to bed, at least if you have a vivid imagination.) But whether hilariously funny or dead-serious, you will not be able to put them down until you've read the very last page - and you will be sorry when you have.

Simply excellent ..., 22 Apr 2001
I bought this book after reading a review in the Saturday Times and I certainly did not regret it. This is a beautiful collection of short stories exploring contemporary American Indian characters. Very funny at times, but moving all of the time. My favorite: the haunting tale of 'Sin Eaters'. This is one of those rare books which I will read again, but for now I just look forward to reading more of Sherman Alexie's work.

Spotty lad fights back, 29 Jun 2008
This is a book that takes off at a run and spins you along in its wake. I don't think it's a book for everyone - it got some quite mixed reviews - but I thought it was exceptional: witty, intense, fast-paced, and extremely thoughtful, with some very dark humour (the t-shirt saying, 'Fighting terrorism since 1492').

It starts with a teenaged boy - an angry, anti-social, abused teenaged boy - examining his acne in the mirror in yet another foster home. He's so spotty that he calls himself Zits: we only find out his real name at the very end of the book. His mother died when he was a young child and his Native American father never acknowledged him. He's been passed from pillar to post for a decade. He's a runaway, an arsonist, a spanner in the works. A few pages along, and he's about to commit mass murder in the lobby of a bank.

And then... he starts time travelling. First stop, an Indian reservation in the mid 1970s; second stop, Custer's Last Stand; third stop... and so it goes. Each time, he's in the head of one of the characters: he's an FBI man, an Indian child, a flying instructor and various others.

From all of this he learns about betrayal and revenge and, oddly enough, forgiveness. You might read this book and say the ending is just too neat to be credible, but it moved me and gripped me to the very last word.

Beautiful and funny, 03 Dec 2008
Sherman Alexie is one of my favourite writers. These stories are moving, humorous, occasionally surreal and always humane. I didn't want to leave the company of any of the fascinating characters.

Read it!, 08 Jan 2005
I Brought this book on a whim, and I'm glad I did! These brilliantly written and well-observed stories have such a strong voice within all of them. Alexie seems to be able to write a Spokane 19 year old female college student to a gay wrestler with apparent ease, turning a phrase that had me laughing on the bus home from work without shame.

Interracial relationships, politics, sexism, racism and homosexuality are all written as if in passing, and flaws within American society are held up for criticism.

There really is a direct voice of cultural identity here; I am neither American or American Indian, but an outsider looking in to a writer creating characters who are all suffering from a floundering search as to what they are. And yes, it made me break my illusions of cultural stereotypes that society and media gave me (lets blame both, everyone else does)concerning the Native Americans.

Good read, whatever your sexual inclination, race or age.

A strange turnaround for Alexie., 03 Oct 2005
Sherman Alexie is a fantastically gifted writer, and Reservation Blues and his short stories are recognized as masterpieces. This book, however, is so different in its focus and execution that one wonders what Alexie's motivation was in publishing it. The main character is despicable--and obviously mentally ill. He brutalizes the most innocent of victims, shocking the reader with murders which could not be more loathsome in their graphic detail. This violence is gratuitous. We are given no understanding of the man or his motivation.

Some might argue that because he was stolen from his Indian mother and given to whites to raise that he never felt part of either the white or Indian worlds, and that this is his justification, if not his motivation. But he was an infant when this kidnapping happened, however disgraceful it was, and his adoptive parents were loving ones. It's the old Nature vs. Nurture theme, and Alexie seems to be saying here that Nurture counts for less than nothing if it takes place in a white environment.

Perhaps Alexie is trying to turn the tables by having an Indian exact the kind of gratuitous violence against the white world that has been exacted against Native Americans. If that is the case, he has confused the issue by having his killer be part of neither culture, with no social values from either culture infusing his actions. And if Alexie's point is that other Indians are justified in feeling like his killer, one wonders why his depiction of Indian life in Reservation Blues, for example, is so bleak and why his main characters there escape to the white world, "[singing] together...with the shadow horses....a song of mourning that would become a song of celebration." Mary Whipple

unremittingly tedious!, 12 Feb 2005
If there existed a prize for the most tedious book ever written then this book would almost certainly be shortlisted. It is quite simply pedestrian nonsense populated with the type of one-dimensional, stereotypical characters one normally associates with the worst daytime TV soap operas! It should be almost painfully obvious to those who have reasonably functioning senses that racism is endemic to all but the most enlightened societies: so that when we seek 'entertainment' from a novel we don't need to be battered about the head by an author who seemingly thinks he's doing God's work by grafting a so-called serial killer story onto a piece of poorly written and pedestrian soap-box tub thumping! If you want a good crime story turn (back) to Michael Connelly, John Connolly, James Lee Burke et al. If you want serious research into the social ills that afflict modern societies take a trip to your local library!