Welcome to Litsy!

This is a story of a survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre and continues on with his descendants. It is about finding oneself, it is about healing. I loved it. “You are from a people who survived by making their surviving mean more than surviving, who did their best to stay together”. Tommy Orange.

Reading these books back to back is breaking my heart 💔 They are complimentary- his 2nd book, Wandering Stars, is a prequel & sequel to his 1st book- There, There. Tommy Orange is coming to Wichita to the Mid- America Indian Center in a couple of weeks. I‘m looking forward to this author event.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

🥔

Orange has an unique style of writing that makes the plot and characters unique and intriguing. This has different eras that we visit, with flawed characters who share their perspectives in their storytelling. Good with a little variety in the stories.

Generations of a Cheyenne family grapple with the legacy of a massacre and a residential school alongside the institutional racism that results in severe generational trauma even as they strive to come together and protect each other. This was my first Tommy Orange book and I definitely want to read There There now, specially since the two books are interconnected.

I really want to like Tommy Orange. But I‘m afraid I just don‘t. I managed to get to the 21% mark of this one, but each time I have to force myself to pick it up and read a few more pages. I‘m glad people love him, but I‘m afraid he‘s just not for me.

Prequel - sequel call it anything you like, Wandering Stars is heartbreakingly beautiful. Looking back to the Sand Creek Massacre and following the family line to the contemporary Red Feather family, Tommy Orange examines the generational injury and trauma that often leads to addiction. Orange‘s powerful prose made this work my first 5/5 ⭐️ pick of 2024.

“There There” prequel & sequel. Shifting 1st per POVs (one 2nd person). Addiction & recovery. Bullet as star. Early characters feel in service to research—little dialogue or interiority. Missing the urgency of “There There.” But lovely bits. 2024

P114 “You are from a people who survived by making their surviving mean more than surviving.”

P135 “He was still trying to figure out what was pain & what was relief, what were dreams & what were drugs”

I really enjoyed this follow up to There There. The audiobook production was great!

Orange first goes back in time tracing the lineage of Opal, Orvil, et al through the violence wrought by colonialism. Then he travels back to Oakland 2018 and follows the family after the shooting at the PowWow and the lingering effects of PTSD.

The excellent audiobook production has a cast of 9 readers to voice the multiple viewpoints in this moving novel that begins with a Cheyenne survivor of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre and his descendants through to contemporary times. Displacement, addiction, home and healing. The novel is linked to the characters in Tommy Orange‘s debut There, There and it‘s every bit as powerful.

We don‘t live on a planet, we are the planet. It made us.

… even wisdom, which word she hates, soaked as it is in new-ageyness, or so Native American-sounding you automatically hear the word accompanied by a Native American flute or an eagle‘s cry. Except that the sound effect everyone considers an eagle‘s cry is in fact a red-tailed hawk.

The only one who can save him is himself, and that is true for everyone.

Recent Reads March 13: literary salon; Indigenous stories; audiobooks; poetry; women in translation
https://youtu.be/1PFEt1JRWf8

#booktube #CanadianAuthor

I knew then that I couldn‘t speak if I wanted to. I couldn‘t say anything and couldn‘t tell if I ever had before.

#aardvarkbookclub #jointoday

I‘d lived enough life, almost died enough times to know when a good thing came along, a thing you didn‘t know could fill you right up, which only when it filled you let you know there‘d been a hole in you before.

#aardvarkbookclub #tommyorange #jointoday

Everything they‘d learned to sit, stand, lean, lie, and rely on, bottomed out from under them as if the earth had quaked and taken all it could into cracks which widened into chasms.

#aardvarkbookclub #wanderingstars #tommyorange

The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

#aardavarkbookclub #jointoday

#bookmail part 2

Orange‘s writing is impossibly beautiful—each sentence constructed with such care & intent that it is easy to just get lost in the cadence of his writing. More than once, I would stop to reread a passage. Raw, visceral, angry, hopeful, this is another really, really good book, one which is, however, not quite as cohesive as There There which I actually liked a little bit more. Good, occasionally great, this is a powerful, haunting read.

Started this last night and it is every bit as good as you would expect it to be…maybe even better. No slump here. Orange‘s second book is bringing it…

Whereas “There There” was rapid bursts of characters which eventually connected, “Wandering Stars” is a slow, concentric, unending ebb and flow of relationships and secrets. At tomes, I was lost in the dreamy haziness but Orange‘s artistry is always worth checking out. Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an arc.

Delightful book haul from the OLA conference yesterday — all ARCs or giveaways, and a very nice compensation for a day on my feet! The TBRnpile grows exponentially 😂😂😂

This is the sequel to There There. I definitely recommend this even if you made the mistake of listening to the audio and had trouble following the story. This book is basically about addiction. And I do love the characters. I might like this more than the first book.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Pub date is 2/27/24
#ARC #Netgalley

I am very interested in reading Orange's upcoming new release. I do think it will be a tough read but an important topic.

#BBGiveawy

Thanks for the opportunity @barbarabb. I appreciate all the ways you make Litsy great.

Would you like to help Barbara celebrate? @Read4life @LiseWorks

A follow-up to Tommy Orange's previous novel There There revisits his characters focusing on Orvil Redfeather and his ancestors that shaped his culture in the modern world. Beginning with the Sand Beach Massacre, the forced assimilation of tribal schools like the Carlisle Institution, and the trauma, abuse, and struggles Natives endure in modern society.