PositiveThe New York Times Book Review... she tells the impassioned, wrenching story of the mental health crisis within her own family and community ... Elliott uses the symbol of the Two Row Wampum—a beaded belt whose rows of purple and white represent the parallel, amicable paths the Haudenosaunee and the Europeans initially agreed to take—as a moving metaphor for the love between herself and her white husband (and the aforementioned father of her child), Mike. Unfortunately, she only scratches the surface of this fascinating history ... Throughout the book Elliott sketches a broad-strokes map of Native brokenness ... Midway, you think that you’ve read the worst that has happened to this author, but the floor drops yet again. Her book is a searing cry to stanch the bleeding.
Toni Jensen
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewWith a controlled voice like a Philip Glass composition, smooth, meandering yet repetitive, Jensen considers her troubled past and begins the work of stitching herself back together ... If reading this book feels at times like being on a train that doesn’t stop winding, Jensen does eventually settle into one of her themes most emphatically ... Using the right words to crystallize her outrage constitutes Jensen’s stance against an uncivilized country where violence can flare abruptly next door, or behind your own.
G. Willow Wilson
MixedThe Washington Post\"... G. Willow Wilson whips up a head-spinning blend of realism, fantasy and history ... And indeed, life in the palace is evocatively sketched. But the chase grows tiresome, stretching on for so long that the reader may begin to wonder why Fatima and Hassan are so important to bag. The novel comes perilously close to reading like an action film, complete with the perfect villain, Luz, with a strange, terrifying splotch on her eye ... Fatima and Hassan’s arduous, sometimes cartoonishly violent journey makes this an uneven book, though a deeply imaginative ending – set on an island that may have sprung from Hassan’s mind – redeems the travel-worn story.\
Peter Cozzens
MixedThe Washington PostThe book, set squarely in the past, is all narrative and short on analysis. The battle scenes, however, are painted with expert brushstrokes on a wide canvas, from the 1860s to 1891. While the book offers a valuable panoramic view and shows us the Army through fresh eyes, its depiction of native peoples is at a certain remove, and we feel their otherness more keenly than we do the injustices perpetrated against them ... A stronger framing of the native past, including spiritual traditions and linguistic diversity, would have helped readers appreciate what was lost when native ways of life were all but obliterated by the end of the 19th century ... Treachery on such an epic scale can bear many retellings, and this account stands out for its impressive detail and scope.
