Title: War Dances
Author: Sherman Alexie
Number of Pages: 256 pages
Book Number/Goal: 68/75 for 2009
My Rating: 2.5/5

This is a collection of short stories and poems linked mainly by the fact that they're about whiny guys. I don't know. I did like a couple of the stories (especially the last one, Salt, and the title story), but the ones that left a bad taste in my mouth really left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of overpower all the rest. The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless was just gross, and I get that he was supposed to be a gross asshat guy, but I don't really need to read a story about a guy who's just wallowing in his assholishness while going "wah, wah, poor me", you know? I could go anywhere on the internet and find a million of them.

Added to that the fact that I'm not a big fan of poetry and these poems didn't do anything to change my mind, and that the writing itself wasn't that great, this was just really not the book for me. I'm glad this wasn't the first thing of his I ever read, otherwise I'd probably write him off and never read anything of his again.
Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Number of Pages: 230 pages
Book Number/Goal: 42/75 for 2009
My Rating: 5/5

Junior may only be fourteen, but he knows living on the rez is a ticket to nowhere, so when one of his teachers tells him to get off the reservation, he enrolls in high school in a nearby white town the very next day, even though it feels like a betrayal of his family and friends and everyone he knows.

I had heard a lot of good things about this book and had it on my wishlist for ages. When I finally got it in the mail today, I ended up reading it right away. It's young adult, has a lot of illustrations, and a very conversational tone, so I zipped right through it. There's so much to it, though. It's a quick read, but it's not light reading. And it's just as awesome as everyone said it was.

On a less awesome note, I got a UK version of this and uh, I know that not all Native Americans are dark-skinned, but they could have given him some pigment. It says Indian on the cover, after all. They're not fooling anyone into thinking it's about white people, so wtf?

Mooch from BookMooch.
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