From the Bookshelf of Reading with Style…

There There

Tommy Orange

Start date: December 1, 2018

Finish date: February 28, 2019

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What Members Thought

Jul 08, 2019 Maia rated it liked it

Shelves: 3-5, 2019

Poss 3.5, 5 for the first chapter. Very well executed, actually made me believe it was worth learnig about the Urban Indian experience, when it has and never will involve me or overlap with my interests, and mostly characters had good voices. But I advise making notes of who's related to who, family trees, because it does become important and I got lost. ...more

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Jan 22, 2019 Megan added it

Shelves: fiction

What surprised me the most about There There was just how cohesive it felt. For all its multitudes of viewpoints, for all the characters with different agendas and complicated family dynamics and relationships to their own identity and selfhood, and even for all the ways it moves through characters' lives and times, the book felt cohesive and whole. And I think maybe it was because it contained so many perspectives and made room for so many stories that it felt that way. ...more

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Oct 04, 2020 Wendy rated it liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction, audiobooks, 2020, native-american

The opening is fantastic, and the essay-like prelude and interludes worked best for me. This is an incredibly "downer" of book, and I came away with a feeling of hopelessness (and wondering if I missed the more hopeful message some readers are reporting). That said, the scale tilted a little too far towards the cavalcade of misery, in which bad things happening to, and being committed by, the characters becomes a shortcut for their development--and since this is a short book with a dozen POV cha ...more

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Aug 25, 2020 Connie Anne Kikta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to-audio-book

Very good story. Really makes you think. Totally different from my usual genres I read (true crime, mystery)

The only bad thing I have to say is there is a lot of characters to keep track of.

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Sep 10, 2018 Cindie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fall-src-2018

Amazing debut. Mind blown.

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Mar 25, 2024 Jane from B.C. rated it it was amazing

A compelling, heartbreaking, gut-punch of a read. Tommy Orange's debut novel weaves together the stories/voices of a dozen different characters as they coverage at an Oakland powwow.

As a person of colonizers/settler ancestry, it is a sobering read. I will be thinking about this book for some time, and I look forward to reading Wandering Star. ...more

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