![]() Popsugar Reading Challenge Category: A book from 3 or more points of view. There There, by Tommy Orange. This novel has a large case of characters, most of them Indigenous, heading to a powwow in Oakland for a variety of reasons. Aspiring filmmaker Dene wants to collect stories. 13-year-old Orvil wants to dance. 10-days-sober Jacqui wants to reconnect with her family. And Octavio plans to rob them of the prize money. We get first, third, and occasionally second-person narration - sometimes more than one of those for the same character. And there's an occasional "interlude" where an omniscient narrator describes some of the grimmest incidents in the centuries of violence toward Indigenous people. I don't mind improbable plot twists in fiction, but improbable character behavior makes it harder to suspend disbelief. Jacqui goes to a 12-step meeting and encounters the guy who raped and impregnated her decades earlier. He's remorseful, and I'll believe her forgiving him. But agreeing to a road trip with him to the powwow? No. Most of the characters have dealt with violence, addiction, and poverty. We're given plenty of foreshadowing that the Chekhov's Gun Rule is going to apply here. Still, when the violence hits, it's wrenching, and there's more than one heartbreak as we learn who lives, who dies, and who's left wondering.
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