A follow-up book to an earlier OBOB title If I Ever Get Out of Here. Native American author Gansworth continues in his conversational writing style with Give Me Some Truth. This isn't a super new release, having come out in 2018, but I really enjoyed If I Ever Get Out of Here and wanted to circle back to this one at some point, and it just worked out that I needed a new book to read and didn't have anything else immediately available!
Like the first book, Gansworth's writing style is easy to read, like Catcher in the Rye without all of the language (although there is some). Most of his books are for adults, so he doesn't have a huge collection for teens, but like the first book this one is written in a way where you feel right away that you are dropping in on some friends, and picking life up right where it was before you arrived!
Gansworth's characters are Native American, so this is an element that he brings that many other teen writers don't. I would compare him to Sherman Alexie, although I think Alexie is a better writer, as writing goes, but Gansworth is just as good writing voice into his characters. You really feel like you are in their heads, especially the main characters. That said, I really liked his OBOB title, but this one seemed tedious. It still flowed well, but the print was pretty small, so even at 400 pages, this probably was meant to be 500 pages or so. Probably too long for the publisher's liking, hence the small text. Older middlers may like this (maybe not as much 6th graders...), and it's pretty realistic, and getting into the lives of modern-day Native Americans is something that will help many of us better understand those perspectives. For those reasons, I give this 3 paws, but I recommend his OBOB book over this one, if you're trying to know where to start with this author.
No comments:
Post a Comment