By: Sherman Alexie
2007
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian follows a 14 year old boy named Junior through the many hardships of his life including being a normal teenage boy, being an Indian, trying to find his identity, and loosing many that are dear to him. Junior is starting high school on the "rez" and he is like any normal boy. He likes naked women, he likes basketball, and hes always getting in fights. However, what sets Junior apart is that he has a brain condition that causes him to seizure and he is in constant danger of possibly killing himself. On his first day of school he becomes enraged at how bad his life is on the rex and throws his geometry book which unfortunately hits his teacher. He is suspended and eventually has to talk to the teacher afterwards but he is not yelled at. Rather, he is given advice that could potentially change his life for forever. He is told to get off the rez because if he stays he will die. The teacher doesn't mean this as a threat but rather away of saving his life and smarts. Junior makes the decision to go to the all white school in Rearden to change his life. His best friend Rowdy and tribal members turn against him since he is a "traitor" and this begins Juniors identity crisis. At his new school he struggles to become the cool kid and eventually gets into the cool crowd with his will to fight back and his great basketball skills. He gets the girl, he gets the cool friends, but he is leaving behind his Indian life. After dealing with many deaths in his family Junior reconncects with his family and realizes how important they are to him. Even though sometimes they get drunk way to much they are always there and they love him which is all he can ask for. Junior realizes how much he cares for his fellow people and friends and learns to balance his tradition along with his new found freedom.
I loved this book a lot, and I know many might be a bit skeptical of it due to its large amount of swearing and topics that are discussed. I am actually completely OK with how it was written though. This book I feel is more intended for 14 year old boys and that is how they think. I am pretty sure every 14 year old guy loves naked girls and swearing so when the story is being told that way it is just trying to be authentic as possible. We can really get a great insight into how an Indian boy at this age would act. I thought it was super entertaining and while some of it was super vulgar like Buffaloes being fucked by "niggers" unfortunately that is just how people act and the book is just trying to be accurate. Junior was such a wonderful character to follow because his inspiration was great to see. He always had to struggle to live and I think through this struggle he learned how to be a survivor and get the most out of life. He is a wonderful person regardless of his qwerks and I applaud him for wanting to get out of the reservation and see the world. Only having one perspective for a whole life can be really boring and not allowing yourself to rise above is just terrible. In a way he is break that "glass ceiling:" that holds so many people back. It was great to see his development as a person and as terrible as the deaths were in his life I feel like each one made him stronger. Each one made his feelings stronger for his people too which was the best part. He had a very mature epiphany for a 14 year old. He was so sad that the people in his tribe he cared for so much kept on dieing because of booze. To have that understanding of how bad it is really puts him over the rest because he can grow up and know he doesn't need it because it could ruin his life. The lesson of learning how to balance being an individual versus sticking to tradition was wonderfully done throughout the book. I feel like this would be a great book to get older boys into reading because it is rather funny, but it could also teach them a lesson about caring for family while also being themselves. Instead of isolating from the family they can still be around while also being themselves and making something out of themselves. Although I would not want this book for my grade schoolers I would still love to own it since I thought it was brilliant.
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