River Readers

I wanted to love this book. It isn't often an indigenious woman gets a voice and there was so much buzz about it that I couldn't wait to read it. Then as I read it, I couldn't wait to finish it. There were incredible moments, glimpses of brilliance but the lack of cohesion throughout the book just ruined it for me. I often felt like I didn't know what was going on with all the jumping between past and present. I read in another review that Mailhot shifted five times in one page between past and present.

Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In Rez Life, his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist’s storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present.

In his literary debut, Tommy Orange intertwines the stories of 12 Native people in modern day making their roads converge at a huge powwow in Oakland. The book depicts the plight of Native Americans through the years and their continued struggles today.