My big reading goal this year (aside from the quantity) was to diversify the voices I read. As I mentioned before I feel like 90% off the voices I hear are white women. Nothing against them, I love nearly all of the books I have read in the past few years...I refuse to finish a book if I don't like it, and I'm no longer sorry or guilty about it. Some books we pick up and we aren't in the right place in our life to read them. Maybe at another point in our life they'll be good for us and maybe they never will.
Hilariously enough it's like book of the month club read my mind. One of the choices this month was "The Removed" by Brandon Hobson. A beautiful novel about a Cherokee family. This novel honestly was beautiful.
I was prepared for a bumpy ride as the book description basically had a "keep tissues near you" warning label on it. Though surprisingly I didn't cry while reading this one. It was fully of this beautiful, magical imagery.
The story follows the Echota's, a family who years ago lost their teenage son to act of racism. A cop heard a gun go off and immediately assumed it was the Indigenous kid and not the white boy that actually shot.
Years later the family is still reeling, as I expect anyone would be. Each in their own way. The father has developed alzheimers and is not functioning as well. The mother has never recovered from losing her baby. The brother is an addict, distanced from the family. The sister, she's a mess of her own.
I loved listening to the story bounce between all of them as they prepare to commemorate their loved ones death as they do each year. How he seemed to be watching over them through an owl and then even seemingly came back to them through the temporary foster child.
All I can really say about the novel is that it was beautiful and you should read it.
"The Removed" by Brandon Hobson
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