The Sentence

Did I want to remember 2020? No. Did Erdrich make me and keep me involved the whole time? Yes. Tookie was a hard character to get to like, and I'll admit I still wasn't super fond of her by the end of the novel, but she had grown, so....perhaps a personal preference. While not perfect, this book was a raw and original recount of a year so many of us would love to forget, and probably never will.

This book felt a bit disjointed at times, and I was wondering how the various things she wanted to explore – indigenous people in the midst of 2020 BLM & the pandemic, Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd's murder, the spirit world (esp for indigenous ppl), love in a family, books and bookstores in the pandemic, forgiveness and self-love – would mesh together. By the end, they did, and I'm glad I read (listened to) this book. At times, the reader (Louise Erdrich herself?) seemed to be whispering the text, which got a bit annoying, but maybe that was exacerbated by my speed. All in all, compelling and sad, but also joyous and rewarding. I was comforted by the end.

Literary slice of life fiction with magical realism elements, it follows a young Native American woman named Tookie, a bookseller and ex-convict, who is haunted by the ghost of Flora, her most annoying customer.
The book takes place in the beginning of the Covid pandemic and also includes other events for 2020 like the murder of George Floyd.  The more realistic themes of racism, literature, relationships, police brutality, pandemic, cultural appropriation, indigenous identity was intertwined with the magical realism of the ghost haunting. I loved how it was a love letter to books and bookstores, the power of reading as a tool of liberation, respect (of self and others) and knowledge.  It was really interesting to learn about Native American cultures and Tookie navigated trough her identity, she also was such an endearing and sympathetic character to me.  I really liked the side characters who were all compelling. I also loved to see some queer rep too.  The writing felt a hit too chaotic, flip flopping emotions and stream of consciousness for me. The plot was not straightforward with the ghost story aspect getting out of focus afterwards and resolved a bit too quickly. Reading other reviews, it might be that it was a deliberate choice by the author who changed the story to reflect what was happening in real life while she was writing.  The end has a list of books including some mentioned and read by the characters, which I thought was an incredible idea and I'll peruse it later on.  Overall a very good novel with some great themes and a great main character, I'll surely check out Louise Erdrich's other books. 

DNF at 35%. what a waste of time

Where to even begin with this novel!! It's a story of haunted people, a haunted city, and a time of personal and collective reckoning.
Louise Erdrich is brilliant. Her writing is gorgeous, masterful, and poignant - I just want to love on and squeeze every single one of the characters in this novel. If I hadn't been in public while finishing this, I would've been a mess of tears. 
I haven't fully processed my thoughts and feelings about the novel yet, but dammit I love it so much. Erdrich is totally becoming one of my favorite authors!

The Sentence. From beginning to end, this title was so well chosen. The story wasn't as funny as it said it was, but that's okay. The life of Tookie, her family and friends during one year was worth it. It's my first book where I read about 2020 up close and personnal. It's a mix-up of history, politics, slices of life, touching scenes, little supernatural stuff and, yes, funny thoughts and moments.

This story is going to stay with me for a while.

What an awesome audiobook. I loved this so much. There are lots of deep themes here: indigenous issues, COVID-19, BLM and George Floyd to name a few. Throw in a haunted book store and you never know what's coming next.

Louise is such a gifted storyteller. The book was vivid, funny, heart wrenching and informative. Loved it.

“The door is open. Go!”I was already curious to read this book as it was another nominee of the Goodreads fiction Choice Award, the list that has been bringing me a lot of good reading time. Knowing that this book was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022 sealed the deal. This was nothing of what I was expecting! The book is described as a “wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors”. It is almost all of that, but I would exclude the wickedly funny bit of the sentence (bad pun intended).I was already expecting Louise Erdrich to be a wonderful writer as she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021 with [b:The Night Watchman 43721059 The Night Watchman Louise Erdrich https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560803752l/43721059.SY75.jpg 68041398]. I loved her vivid writing style! Usually, it is very easy for me to visualize what it is happening in a story but Louise writing made me hear, listen and feel everything as if I was part of it. Then I felt it. The earth held is breath. There was a slow release and then a soft downshifting silence. I turned my lamp off and my thoughts dimmed. It was starting to snow. At last, the pure and fragile snow was falling upon us, separating off the air from the dirt, the living from the dead, the reader from the book”I didn't particularly like Tookie, I've felt she was quite mean with everyone with whom she interacted but ended up becoming especially interested and engaged with her personal life and struggles. For me, this book shines in Tookie and Pollux scenes, as well as their relationship with Hetta. A significant part of the book covers the pandemic and George Floyd events which may be a trigger to some readers. Now that I feel more detached of those events, I feel ready to start reading about them. 2020 was a terrible year we might want to forget but shouldn't.”Together we straggled through a year that sometimes seemed like the beginning of the end. A slow tornado. I want to forget this year. I want this to be the now where we save our place, your place, on earth”I must say I'm not a huge fan of books with tons of references to other books and authors. This may work wonderfully if you have the same type of references or alienate readers. In “The Sentence” I think this issue was taken to an extreme which, for me, didn't add value to the story and felt a bit snobbish. However, I will add some of the recommended books to my never ending TBR list.Ultimately, this is a ghost story, reminding us that everyone has their own ghosts.3.5 stars rounding up to 4 due to the beautiful writing.

I very much like Louise Erdrich's sense of humour and writing generally. But pacing is not good and I was very put off by the meandering of the plot.

Not sure if this was a wrong book at the wrong time issue. I could not get this book to hold my attention. The parts that I did like I really liked but those parts weren't often enough

It's hard to know what to say about this book. It feels like I read it at the perfect time. A lot of heavy content is covered (incarceration, identity, reckoning with historic violence, as well as the events of 2020 as they occurred in Minneapolis) but the tone is hopeful overall. Despite some of the strange situations the characters feel grounded and real, and their conversations gave me lots of food for thought. I did think some of the stuff with the niece felt a bit unnecessary but overall fantastic book.

While I fully appreciated with Erdrich was doing with this and highly recommend it to those interested, this just didn't work for me. I found it somewhat slow and more meandering than I would prefer. There is some stuff here that will really stick with me, though.

damn Louise!!

I didn't like this novel as much as I have liked the author's previous books, but I'm still giving it 5 stars because there is so much about it to admire. First, I congratulate the author for owning an independent bookstore and her main character in this book, Tookie, for working in the novel's version of that store. Books are central to the plot and the message here, and I am most appreciative of that as a writer and book-lover. Second, the book does an admirable job of addressing so many important topics–the historic and present injustices perpetrated against Indigenous People, the Black Lives Matters movement, climate change, COVID19–moreso than just about any novel I can think of. Third, the characters are stunningly unique. Okay, I'm not a fan of ghost stories, and at its core that's what this is, but the story makes sense for these characters, if not for me.

I really really loved the main story (love/ghost story), as well as the fact that the fictional narrative is set in the author's real bookstore (she even makes an entertaining and revealing cameo) and the characters are all connected to it.

The only thing that felt a bit odd for me was the inclusion of covid and the George Floyd protests - I'm not really sure why, maybe it's too soon? It already felt quite dated because of this (I know, it's crazy considering that the pandemic is not over at all yet, but the emotions of the early covid era make me feel nostalgic now which was definitely not author's intention).

I wonder if people who have lived through traumatic periods of history ever truly want to read about that history, unprompted. Like, survivors of the Blitz when the first post-WWII books started coming out, or people who fought in Vietnam. Because while the good first half of this took place in the Before Covid Times, the second half was about George Floyd, and protests for BLM, and washing down one's groceries, and loved ones being on ventilators, and there being protocols that prevent you from being in the hospital with those or any other loved ones. And I can't decide if it's just too soon for me, or if I will ever be interested in truly revisiting 2020. I ask because I felt very detached from the second half of the book, in a way that I don't think I would have if this was ancient history, perhaps.

Maybe this was Erdrich's need to process, but we all have our own ways to process and reading another person's experience of a thing I'm also still experiencing was ... not my favorite. But I appreciated Tookie's story of her theft and incarceration, and I liked her relationships with her family and the bookstore and her coworkers, even if the ghost thing didn't make perfect sense to me. I liked the first half, focusing on all that stuff, way more than the second.

Also, I have not encountered this much in my reading, I don't think, but it totally threw me off to realize that Erdrich wrote herself into her book - it made me wonder how much of this was truly fiction and whether Tookie was indeed a real person, and and and.

Anyway, this makes it sound like all I have is complaints, but this WAS a compelling read, and I have another Erdrich already on my nightstand, so obviously it's not going to turn me off her as a writer or anything.

It was good to read a book and see how people were trying to live their lives and deal with all things that happened in 2020. This doesn't seem like a book about the pandemic or a book about injustice or a book about Native Americans or a mystery or a haunting. It is just a book about life and this life is all those things mentioned above. Tookie is a character that will stay with me for a while.

Well, this book is due back to the library and I'll leave off a star rating because I couldn't finish. And I'm not sure I really want to continue.

This inability to finish a Louise Erdrich book is a real surprise to me. She is one of our great living American writers, yet this book seems rushed or not as carefully constructed as the other books I've read. Louise Erdrich can take almost any topic and weave a story out of it, so it may be my own personal roadblock that's preventing me from getting further.

There is a really nice list of books at the end I'm definitely putting in my to-read list.

Also, Louise Erdrich owns Birchbox Books in Minneapolis, which is on my to-visit list.

https://birchbarkbooks.com

So. Unbearably. SLOW.

It took me almost two weeks to read; I found it nearly impossible to go more than two pages without stopping dumbly, having to reread a particular sentence or passage, savor it, sometimes to the point of putting the book down. Then, when the end approached, I had to read even slower because dammit I could not bear the thought of ending our relationship. Sometimes Jackie resented a perfectly good book because it ‘forced' her to stay up all night. Oh, how I resent this book. For forcing me to read so slowly. For ending. For making me fall head-over-heels in love with every one of the beautiful imperfect characters and especially with the writer who gave them life and who so exquisitely put together word after perfect word.

Excellent. 5+ stars.