Play Book Tag discussion

LaRose by Louise Erdrich
3.5 stars (round up to 4)

Despite this author's prolific body of work, I had never read anything by Erdrich. I knew she wrote about Native American issues, and getting to something by her this month was perfect for the Fall Flurry of Holidays Challenge. (Though part of me wonders if it is slightly racist to read about Native Americans in a month that celebrates basically the start of their displacement and oppression by white settlers...)

The Irons are a family that lives on an Indian reservation and the Ravages live a stones throw away but on non-reservation land. The Iron and Ravage wives -- Emmaline and Nola -- are half-sisters but their families are not overly close. Then, Landreaux Iron shoots and kills the Ravage's five year old son while out hunting. It was a tragic accident but Landreaux and Emmaline feel that the old ways demand they share their son of the same age, LaRose, with the grieving family.

It is a fairly simple premise. But the single act sets in motion reverberating effects through both families as well as other members of the Indian community. While this story unfolds, we also learn the history of LaRose's namesakes, five generations of women who all have a special connection to their heritage that is passed down through the years.

This book started pretty slow and, honestly, at the beginning you liked a grand total of zero characters. Okay, I maybe liked LaRose. But, I felt that their portrayal was an honest reflection of the guilt and anger and regret that someone would have in that situation. I do not think the solution of sharing a son was realistic, but the resulting emotions were. Thankfully, I thought the characters got much better in the second half of the book. I actually liked most of them by the end of the book and, even though their stories were not always happy ones, there was healing and resolution.

Another complaint was that the book was kind of hard to follow as it jumped around perspectives and times quite a bit. Perhaps this would have been easier to follow in print, but I listened to it. I eventually caught on to some of the language cues that let me know when and where we were in the story, but it caused a lot of rewinding at the beginning.

I liked the back story of the LaRoses, but am not sure the manner in which it was told was the most effective. The flashbacks to tell it in first person were a bit disjointed and not evenly paced throughout the story. However, I did really enjoy the flashback to the childhood of Landreaux and then the prolonged explanation of the first LaRose. Despite that, I couldn't shake the feeling that the author was just selecting a new and different writing technique at random every few chapters. Flashbacks, time jumps, different perspectives, they were all thrown in.

Overall, I am rounding this one up to 4 stars because I had trouble putting it down for the final half. I was invested in the characters and wanted to see how everything worked out, despite being annoyed by some of the writing choices.

Oh, and the audio was not good. It was read by the author and she should stick to writing. Seriously, get this one in print!

wow. I liked the first half better than the 2nd. Interesting perspective

Nicole wrote: "wow. I liked the first half better than the 2nd. Interesting perspective"

Same here . . .did you do audio also? I really thought the second half dragged. I liked the part about (view spoiler)[Landreaux and Romeo running away from the boarding school (hide spoiler)]. For awhile. But didn't like anything involving any of the LaRose matriarchy . . .those people never came alive for me.

Mostly it just had too many slow parts for my taste . . .tomorrow my book club meets to discuss. I think I may be in the minority!