Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Shell Shaker: LeAnne Howe


“Why was Red Shoes, the most formidable Choctaw warrior of the eighteenth century, assassinated by his own people?  Why does his death haunt Auda Billy, an Oklahoma Choctaw woman, accused in 1991 of murdering Choctaw Chief Redford McAlester?  Moving between the known details of Red Shoes’ life and the riddle of McAlester’s death, this novel traces the history of the Billy women whose destiny it is to solve both murders—with the help of a powerful spirit known as the Shell Shaker.”

As you may have guessed, this was another book that was not of my own choosing.  It was another novel for my Multicultural American Novel course.  My instructor has Native American blood, so this course has a couple of Native American books assigned.  Shell Shaker was obviously one of them.

I must say that the first chapter did a pretty good job of drawing me in.  I love historical fiction, so the portions told from Shakbatina’s and the other eighteenth century Native Americans’ points of view were interesting to me.  I was expecting to feel the same way about the “modern” portions of the story, but, unfortunately, I did not.  As much as I appreciated the unique way that the story was told—flipping back and forth between the past lives of the characters and the present—I did not feel any sort of attachment to them.  They felt very flat.  I think this is perhaps because the author spent so much time working on making connections between the characters’ past and present selves that there was not enough time to really round them out.  On top of it, the story had so many different characters and was told from several different points of view.  This hindered my creating an attachment to any one or two characters.  I felt very little sympathy for anyone other than the first character I was introduced to:  Shakbatina.  Even Auda, who has terrible things done to her and does suffer, seemed very “fake”. (I’m sure there’s a better word to be used here, but I cannot find it.  I simply mean that she wasn’t fleshed out enough for me.)  Rather than sympathy, I felt pity.  I know it is easy for me to say that it’s stupid because I have never been in such a situation, but I have a hard time connecting with female characters who allow themselves to be led on, tricked, abused, and they choose to remain in that situation.  Overall, I would have to say that I connected the most with Isaac Billy.  His kind heart and quick wit were very endearing.

I wish I had enjoyed this book more.  It was a fairly quick read, but I wish I’d relished the process.  I am not a fan of “magic” books and this was one of those.  I’m not against the supernatural, but this one was a little bit too over the top for me.  I’m sure that there are those out there who love this book—more power to them.  This one was just not for me—not terrible!  Just not for me.

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