Helpful Score: 2
This book was very interesting to me. I was immediately hooked by the wild opening story that shapes our main character. Our main character is the owner of a bookshop. Two of the regular visitors to the bookshop take on a character shape of their own. One visitor goes on to haunt the bookshop and haunt our main character. The other visitor often talks about books, and I enjoyed all of the book recommendations throughout. The end of the book even comes with a list of all of the books mentioned throughout - it is a very long list, and I love that.
The last one-third of the book explores the year 2020 with both the arrival of Covid and the George Floyd murder and protests. I felt that part of the book included more monologues on the state of the world. The parts where we explore the state of the world and where characters share their perspectives almost felt like a different book. The book pivots here and becomes something different, unrelated/very loosely related to the story that preceded it.
The last one-third of the book explores the year 2020 with both the arrival of Covid and the George Floyd murder and protests. I felt that part of the book included more monologues on the state of the world. The parts where we explore the state of the world and where characters share their perspectives almost felt like a different book. The book pivots here and becomes something different, unrelated/very loosely related to the story that preceded it.
Helpful Score: 1
Being from Minnesota and reading about the Minneapolis horrors post George Floyd's death wasn't easy. Tookie wasn't a soft woman, she was hard-edged with a shell to keep people out. I loved the use of book titles throughout the book and plan to add many of them to my list.
Helpful Score: 1
Any voracious reader will totally enjoy this book. It beautifully entwines the indigenous perspective with the George Floyd event in Minnesota. The references to books in the very back of the book have provided me with a whole new selection of reading material.
Erdrich explores the notion of "sentence" ⦠from a collection of words with power to a term of servitude, sets it against the summer of Covid and the George Floyd murder, and stirs in a heaping dollop of ghost story ⦠and makes the damn thing work.
