Initial Thoughts on "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian"

I just finished the book. :) Halfway through it, I already had a lot to say but my thoughts are disorganized. They come and go. My fingers cannot catch up so I'll just try my best to write my initial thoughts as of the moment.

First of all, I liked the book. I can't say I love it but I do genuinely like it. I don't know if it counts as much since I usually like whatever I'm reading. Hey, why would I buy it (or ask for it) if I wasn't interested? Anyway, besides that I still liked the book. At first I was skeptical because I am past the stage of reading childrens' books. My Maddisson Finn days are gone. I outgrew Nancy Drew. Nonetheless, I liked the way this book was presented.

Presentation. Big font. Short chapters. Illustrations. Lots and lots of cartoons. There are pages when the cartoons were a distraction but overall, they added fun. They lessened the burden, the pain, the depth of the issues discussed. The writing was good. Coming from a first person perspective of a teenager, it was honest. Straightforward. As I told my friend, the writing had no pretensions. It didn't try to be philosophical or hide meanings between the lines. It was direct, as a child would be.

Famous quotes from writers were here and there and some characters had their wise-man moments but it didn't make the lines feel forced. It seems to me there were there to put some serious in the book. There were a lot of social issues present in the novel but they didn't burden me so much. The writer gave me the choice to take it as face value and move on to the next sentence. It was my choice if I wanted to dwell on the sadness, on the inequality, on the problems. That made me feel good.

The story started as a story of an outsider and I had my fears as to the flow of the story. Will the bullying continue? Will the differences between white and native American persist until the end? Is he fighting a war that cannot be won? Fortunately, they didn't. This is not a story about how an Indian is ostracized. It is not a malicious story about how whites are all racist and take away all the opportunities. Of course some of these were mentioned but it wasn't the focus.

This is a story of hope. Of good things. Of chasing dreams maybe, not so much since we only saw a year of Junior's life. Is it about identity? Destiny? Family? Community? Part-time. Of everything.

P.S. I though "Indian" in the book meant people who lived in India. I only realized it was Native American a few chapters till the end. See, I was interpreting is as I wanted to. I'll ready it again sometime. I might have more (and maybe different?) insights then.