The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie

Published by Andersen Press: London, 2015 (2007).

 This book was recommended to me as a book that could potentially be studied at a Year 10 level. It tells the story of Arnold Spirit (aka Junior), a native-American Indian living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. After an altercation with a teacher and subsequent challenge to succeed, Junior transfers to the non-Reservation school Reardan. There he seeks to make friends, falls in love, and joins a basket-ball team, playing against his former friends and relatives.

The interesting element of the story, and one that could be a good study, is the fact that Junior struggles to fit in both in the 'white' world of Reardan and the Indian world of Spokane, being seen as an outsider in the one world and a traitor in the other. He also struggles with his own self-worth and the 'limitations' of life as an Indian. The fact that the book is 'semi-autobiographical' is also interesting.

This all leads itself to fascinating themes, but unfortunately the book also is fairly coarse for a YA novel. As much as it might be 'real' to have characters talking about their urges and the physical reactions coming from those, its not really something I enjoy reading myself, and not something I'd recommend for studying. Which is a pity, because the plot doesn't really require those scenes to exist, and without them I probably would enjoy the book over all.

Completed 17 April 2020.

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