Flight: A Novel by Sherman Alexie
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Book Reviews of Flight: A Novel
Book Review: Amazing Young Adult Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Flight is the story of fifteen year old Zits. Zits is a half Native American/half white orphan. He's been in and out of foster homes since his mother died when he was six years old. Zits has decided to commit a massive act of violence. Right at the moment he begins to act on that decision, he is transported back in time into the body of an FBI agent during the Civil Rights era. This happens to be Zits first stop in a series of travels through history.
This was an amazing little book. The main character gets to find out what it's like to be inside someone else. To feel what they're feeling. To see what they're seeing. To see hate and what it does to people no matter what race they are or what side they're on. At one point, Zits is a white man hunting down Native Americans. At another point, he's a Native American killing the white man. It was just so interesting to see both sides of the same situation and see how both sides feel justified in what they're doing. These aren't the only situations he finds himself in, but they're all interesting. This book is quite violent and the language is rather course, but it should be. This is a fifteen year old boy that's lived a horrible life and the things he does and says feel real. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in this sort of thing, but I can see some parents having issues with the language and violence. Personally, I would let my kids read it if they wanted, but that's just me.
Book Review: fantastic new novel from Sherman Alexie......
Summary: 5 Stars
FLIGHT is the latest novel by Seattle-based author, Sherman Alexie, and is probably his best yet! Alexie's works are always rich with double entendre and poetic depth. He has the power to make you laugh so hard you cry, and then cry so hard that you laugh. As an author, he mixes bitterness with joy, all the while looking at human tragedy and its power to make or break you, or, in this case, provide enough material to induce powerful fantastical experiences.
Alexie transfers the experience of alienated, biracial identity to main character, Zits (the name speaks for itself), a half Native/half Irish young teenager who has been through the foster care system numerous times, never knew his biological father (his link to his Native identity), and therefore never felt a sense of himself as Native or Irish, but an ambigiously ethnic "other." Zits deals with turbulent experiences in his foster homes (including sexual abuse at the hands of his foster father, and numerous violent episodes with others), through escaping into a fantasy world, where he has the power to time travel and takes on the persona of numerous characters, including a Caucasian vigilante and a Native boy who has lost the power to speak. Powerful and beautiful.........I can already see this being adapted for the screen.
Book Review: re view
Summary: 5 Stars
I would like to start this review by saying I am usually skeptical of reviews. Alot of times I find reviews either for books or movies, overly praising or overly critical. That being said, it is a bit hypocritical for me to be writing an overly praisey review, but unfortunatly, I will have to. From the start of the book, and Alexie's first line, the reader is drawn into this strange, violent and angry world the protagonist lives in. "Call me Zits," 10 letters that set the stage for this story to unfold, and here unfold really is what this story does as Zit's jumps from body to body through time learning about the human condition.
This book is filled with lots of graphic language and images of violence, but is appropriate for any audience as it is at heart, the story of a lonley, confused arkward (sp) teen- and while that maybe seem a cliched image and topic to write a novel on, Alexie has done it quite well with interesting situations, characters with depth who move in unexpected ways, even for themselves and often times humourous dialouge and observations. A good, fast read that will stay with a reader for a far longer time than just after its finished.
Book Review: flight
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a gripping and exceptionally well-written book. I suspect it will come to be viewed as one of the finest novels on adolescence since "Catcher in the Rye". The central character and voice of the novel is an orphaned, American Indian teenager, cruelly nicknamed "Zits". Zits not only has to deal with the usual challenges of adolescence, but has to do so in the setting of homelessness and racism. In a very interesting and ingenious literary device, Zits' path of self-discovery takes the form of time-traveling. In his time traveling, Zits embodies various characters -including Native American ancestors and even, at other times, their protagonists during seminal moments in American Indian history, such as the battle of Little Big Horn. Like Holden Caulfield, Zits sees through the hypocrisies of adults and their institutions.
In the end, however, this is a story of hope and redemption - both for Zits as well as for the society which has shunned, abused, and taken advantage of him and others like him. To quote Tom Barbash in the New York Times Book Review: "It's raw and vital... and there isn't a false word" in it.
Book Review: In light of recent tragedy, this book is a must read!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have pretty much loved everything that I've read of Sherman Alexie's. He is absolutely brilliant, and his latest work is no exception. I found out about this book from a recent NPR interview with Mr. Alexie and bought it the next day. In a few short days, I was finished with it.
I'm not sure that it would have had such a strong impact on me if it hadn't been for the recent incident at VT. Such an event is difficult to make sense of, but reading this book about a person who justifies random murders in his head is eerily similar to what happened. Is killing ever all right? How many things do we justify to ourselves that may be in the scheme of things really unjustifiable?
What I was really in need of after something so awful was hope. This book helps give the reader hope that people can change; people can realize their mistakes and undo the brainwashing they have done to themselves.
In the end, a little bit of hope goes a long way, and this wonderfully written and insightful book manages to give just that. Please read it!!!