Unspeakable Things

by Heather McBride

A portion of the proceeds from every copy of Unspeakable Things sold will go directly to One Spirit to benefit the Lakota Indian youth of Pine Ridge Indian reservation, in South Dakota. To learn more about One Spirit please visit-Native progress(.)org-The ONE Spirit Mission is to assist the Lakota people in preserving and revitalizing the Lakota culture, language, and self-sufficiency while meeting the basic needs of Lakota families, children, and elders. They strive to cultivate an intercultural relationship that recognizes that we are all related and that American Indians are an equal and valued part of our society.Book Intro: "For teenagers, peer pressure from friends is tough, but it's a whole lot worse when it comes from friends that are dead." Spirit dreams, Lakota Indian Legends and a tortured soul. These are all things that exist in the life of 16-year-old Lakota Indian girl, Aiyana Fox. At age 6 Aiyana witnessed her mother's tragic murder. Ten years later, she is living on a Lakota Indian reservation called Pine Ridge, with her elderly grandmother and life begins to change drastically for her. She has what the Lakota call "spirit dreams". They are a way for the Lakota's dead to call out to the living. In these dreams, she speaks to her great grandmother, who died decades before her birth and her high school friend Lia, who died one year ago. They tell Aiyana she must find and bring justice to the person who took her mother's life, so that her soul can finally rest in peace. Aiyana has opened the doorway to the spirit world, and not only can good spirits come out, but evil ones as well.Aiyana finds herself surrounded by Lakota legends that she once thought were only made up stories, evil in its most dangerous form and a tangled web full of carefully crafted lies. Time is not on her side as she desperately tries to track down her mother's killer. Failure is not an option for Aiyana, because if she fails she could lose her life to the demon spirits that now surround and hunt her, or to the man who killed her mother. The question is, will she be fast enough to escape them both, fulfill the request of her deceased ancestors, and close the doorway to the spirit world before they take her.

298 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2012

About the author

Heather McBride writes in the young adult and middle grade genre and is also a children's picture book author and Illustrator. Heather lives in Southern Indiana with her family and and various pets.

Reviews

[Rants and Bants · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn’t a bad story and the characters weren’t bad either…but I’m afraid the writing was atrocious. There’s no nice way to put it. This tends to be the case much of the time with self-published books, and it’s no surprise when you don’t have someone else giving you proper feedback. It was very hard to read and take seriously. Whether it was through numerous spelling/grammatical errors (putting apostrophes where they don’t need to be, using “to” when it was supposed to be “too”, run-on sentences, etc.), or the style in general (there was one sentence that literally said, "She loudly let out a loud sigh", or something like that). The ending scene was especially difficult to get through because it messy and all over the place and confusing, and I didn’t know what was going on, AND, I don’t know any grown man that talks the way these men did. I’m sorry, but I seriously don’t know any man, of any kind, no matter what his personality is, that talks the way these men did. It was cringy enough the way the teens talked, but it was even more painful to have fully-adult men, who were supposed to be scary, talk like this. I’d be more intimidated by a Disney villain than these guys. I hate to make this next comparison, because it’s very harsh coming from me, but the dialogue in this book heavily reminded me House of Night. Not QUITE as bad, but almost. And almost is enough for serious concern.

LUCKILY, the characters did not remind me of the HoN characters (other than the protagonist being a half-Native American girl, and the plot has a lot to do with some sort of Native American folklore). In fact, unlike some books, it actually makes the effort to send good messages, such as it’s not okay to be racist towards ANYONE (including white people), or that you shouldn’t judge a person or their life based on their skin color or family or anything else without truly knowing them, etc. This is why it’s getting two stars instead of one. It may have gotten higher if the writing wasn’t so bad that it was impossible to ignore. A heavy dosage of editing/revision is in need. Additionally, more sophisticated-sounding explanations of what the shadow demons were rather than just calling them “things”.

Also…it would’ve been nice had there been some sort of conclusion about Kin Cold Water’s mother (I think that’s her name?). Wasn’t she the one who ratted out Aiyanna and Chayton? She’s pretty evil for having done that, I wish there’d been some sort of reprimand for her. At any rate…like I said: Bad writing, decent story and characters.

Summed up: Would be a lot better if it was rewritten.

[MK · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty decent read. Some typos due to being self-published, but I respect how some of the profits went to One Spirit to help Pine Ridge Reservation. Certainly a lot better than other Native American or First Nations reads out there.

[E.C. Frey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming story for a wonderful cause in need of serious editing.