illustration of main character, Junior, holding a basketball and looking over his shoulder

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

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Did you enjoy reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and would you recommend it?

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I'm slowly becoming a fan of Sherman Alexie.  I really enjoyed reading The  Absolutley True Diary of  A Part-Time Indian finding the narrative mixed with doodling delightful.  I've read his essay "Superman and Me" in which he recounts how he learned how to read and appreciate literature. I highly recommend it.  And, if you haven't seen it yet, check out his interview on the Colbert Report.  Funny and insightful.  I've never seen Colbert speechless before, but it happens.

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I too love the book and love most all of Sherman Alexie's writing. The wit, humor, and insight into the human condition that are expressed both by Alexie and his characters are outstanding. His short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is also one of my favorites.

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I loved the book, and I'm running around finding more Sherman Alexie books to read now. I think there was a lot of depth and layers to this novel. Its not a very long or hard book to read, but it captures so much of the human condition in a way that kids can understand. The cartoons revealed another aspect of Junior's personality, insights, and thoughts, and I liked that part of the novel a lot. Junior is really perceptive and relatable, and I appreciated that. I connected to his experiences and loved his sense of humor. His humor was the most important part of the book for me. If you have a sense of humor, you can tackle anything in life. Junior's humor got him through so many times. He was cynical, sarcastic, and yet poignant at the same time. Alexie writes with the right amount of wit and reality that none of it seemed forced. I'm really looking forward to reading more of Alexie's work. 

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I did enjoy the book and liked it even more after teaching it to sophomore students.  We collectively agreed that the use of visual images in the narrative helps the reader relate to Junior’s character—the drawing are intimate and serve as a window into Junior’s deepest feelings.  Junior even says at the beginning of the novel that a picture can often speak much more than words.

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I love this book!

I have recommended it to everyone. I literally laughed out loud at some of the passages in here.

I love how completely honest and frank that Junior is about his life and about the struggles that he went through. Alexie has done an amazing job of creating a character that seems very real.

Alexie came to the high school where I teach a few years back when this novel was first published, and he told our students about his childhood. It is very clear after reading this that Junior is Alexie! With all of those experiences, no wonder he's such an amazing writer!

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