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3.6 AVERAGE
3.6 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I honestly didn't know what to expect with this book but happy to have read it! The book itself is based on different timeframe's throughout Ruby's life. Ruby was adopted at birth and so desperately wants to find her place in this world and discover who she truly is and where she comes from. There are a lot of sexual encounters that she has that start to define her place in the world. Her adoptive parents are no treasure either and are the starter of her unhealthy relationships, emotional abuse, and her abuse of drugs and alcohol.
This novel accurately shows the effects of intergenerational trauma and what it’s like to be disconnected from one’s culture, people, and language. It also touches on the disastrous effects of residential schools. These are all heavy topics, but hope and optimism shine through this beautiful book as well.
I loved the fact that Cree was interspersed throughout. Here are some Cree words found in this book:
Moshom - grandfather
Kohkum - grandmother
Astum - come
Kisciyiniw - old man
This novel accurately shows the effects of intergenerational trauma and what it’s like to be disconnected from one’s culture, people, and language. It also touches on the disastrous effects of residential schools. These are all heavy topics, but hope and optimism shine through this beautiful book as well.
I loved the fact that Cree was interspersed throughout. Here are some Cree words found in this book:
Moshom - grandfather
Kohkum - grandmother
Astum - come
Kisciyiniw - old man
Not my cup of tea -- in terms of the writing style. Everything about the storyline was promising and interesting to me, but I just could not get into the structure of the book. That meant it was hard for me to connect with the content.
Each chapter tells a different story. Most of these chapters follow Ruby, the protaganist, through different bits of her life, NOT chronologically ordered. I found the order to be very confusing.
A few chapters follow the perspective of other characters, like Ruby's family members. I often found that I enjoyed those chapters much more. I think it's because (1) their stories were told more completely by focusing on one event, and (2) I never really understood Ruby as a character, which is largely because of the fragmentation of her story through the different time periods.
I found that many chapters jumped right into a story with names you didn't know; you only learned the who these people were a few pages in. I did not like that.
In summary, I enjoyed about 25% of the chapters, but the other 75% I was bored or confused or trying to understand how this all came together. I almost DNFed many times, but really wanted to push through to the end in case it all made sense to me then. It didn't. Perhaps I need to give it another try, but I honestly don't want to spend any more time with characters I despised like Dana. Perhaps it's my own inability to weave together the scattered story.
Each chapter tells a different story. Most of these chapters follow Ruby, the protaganist, through different bits of her life, NOT chronologically ordered. I found the order to be very confusing.
A few chapters follow the perspective of other characters, like Ruby's family members. I often found that I enjoyed those chapters much more. I think it's because (1) their stories were told more completely by focusing on one event, and (2) I never really understood Ruby as a character, which is largely because of the fragmentation of her story through the different time periods.
I found that many chapters jumped right into a story with names you didn't know; you only learned the who these people were a few pages in. I did not like that.
In summary, I enjoyed about 25% of the chapters, but the other 75% I was bored or confused or trying to understand how this all came together. I almost DNFed many times, but really wanted to push through to the end in case it all made sense to me then. It didn't. Perhaps I need to give it another try, but I honestly don't want to spend any more time with characters I despised like Dana. Perhaps it's my own inability to weave together the scattered story.
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As an adopted person I clicked with this right away even though it was hard to read at times. I had to set the book down for a few days when I got to the birth mother’s story. There is a lot of trauma and its effects represented in this book. The story is in fragments and doesn’t really have an ending, just questions and sense of incompleteness… Much like the actual lived experience of an adopted person trying to piece their origins story together.
I will say that I did enjoy this book. I thought it was an interesting examination of how trauma can manifest itself and touched also on interesting interpersonal dynamics. Some other reviews mention being caught off-guard by the sexual elements in the book, but I didn't mind those. In my reading of the book, I just saw those sections as further examples of how trauma can manifest itself: in hypersexuality. I enjoyed that Bird-Wilson explored hypersexuality, self-harm, and a disjointed sense of self as well as alcoholism. I know that there isn't much exploration of a specific mental health diagnosis (beyond alcoholism), and I don't want to label anything, but Ruby's experiences did remind me of Borderline Personality Disorder (and I swear, I don't mean this in a bad way). As a result, I also think this book is an interesting depiction of Borderline Personality Disorder.
What I didn't enjoy as much, and why I'm rating this book 3 stars, is that the book seemed rather disjointed. It was confusing to follow at many points. I could connect the dots when it comes to how some sections/chapters relate to some other sections/chapters, but I still am left with a good amount of sections/chapters that I can't connect the dots with. I saw at the way end that three sections of this book were previously published independently as short stories. I think, with that knowledge, things did connect with me that this book seems more like a collection of somewhat connected short stories than anything else.
It's not that I wouldn't recommend this book. As I mentioned, I did enjoy it and I think it's an interesting exploration of trauma. I think it's a good read. It's just something that I couldn't bring myself to rate 4 or 5 stars.
What I didn't enjoy as much, and why I'm rating this book 3 stars, is that the book seemed rather disjointed. It was confusing to follow at many points. I could connect the dots when it comes to how some sections/chapters relate to some other sections/chapters, but I still am left with a good amount of sections/chapters that I can't connect the dots with. I saw at the way end that three sections of this book were previously published independently as short stories. I think, with that knowledge, things did connect with me that this book seems more like a collection of somewhat connected short stories than anything else.
It's not that I wouldn't recommend this book. As I mentioned, I did enjoy it and I think it's an interesting exploration of trauma. I think it's a good read. It's just something that I couldn't bring myself to rate 4 or 5 stars.
This book was a bit of a challenging read. The format of the book is sections of Ruby's life and her interactions with different people at different points in her life. You get to see all of these points in time and how interacting with different people help shape her, but it all feels very disjointed, and Ruby herself is not a very likable character. There are parts of the story that are notable and bring to mind points to evaluate in one's own life, but if you can't get behind reading about Ruby in this format, DNFing is the better option for you.
medium-paced