The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

I just finished reading “The absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian.” By Sherman Alexie. This book was mainly about a boy named Junior who is growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. Born into a very poor family, he battles friendship, growing up, and learning to fit in and find his way. When he decides to leave the reservation and attend a school where it is all white kids, some people from home look down on him, especially his best friend Rowdy. Junior learns that maybe what he thought his life was going to turn out to be was wrong. He realizes that you only get one life, and if that means leaving the only place you know to find who you are, it’s worth it.

In this book there are a lot of ideas about setting yourself free and doing what you actually believe in. In the book Junior has grown up on this sad, poor reservation, watching his father be a drunk who didn’t fu-fill his dream of becoming a musician and watching his mother who is extremely smart but couldn’t go to college because she was too poor. Also Juniors sister just sits in their basement all day doing nothing because she is out of school but has no job or boyfriend or anything. Seeing all this makes him just feel like he is going to be a failure too so he prepares himself for the worst. When you are surrounded by people who don’t push themselves and don’t try it temps you to do the same, no mater if it’s in life or a school project. If one person gives up everyone else is just like well I might as well give up too. I feel for Junior because he is really smart and in the beginning of the book he kind of just goes along with his life, when in the back of his mind he knows he has to get off this reservation and into the real world. It’s really hard sometimes when you know that you belong somewhere else(just like junior) but you don’t know how to get there. It’s scary when you have known something all your life and watched people around you give up, but in your heart you know that you can do better then them.

Finally when Junior makes the decision to attend a really good school a little bit off the reservation, filled with only white kids, it’s a big scary step for him. Even though his parents support him, lots of other people don’t. People on the “rez” look down on him and think he is betraying them, and their culture, and everything they have always known. The thing is I understand that they might feel that way, but how dare they when they are all failures themselves. It makes me really angry because this kid is actually trying to do something with his life and he is the only one that was brave enough to step off this reservation, so how can they get mad at him for wanting to achieve things in life? That would make me really mad if I were Junior. What would you do if you really believed you had to do something, but all the people that you knew, totally went against you? I understand that the people living on the reservation might feel like white people were terrible to Indians so how could Junior leave, but the thing is he they aren’t seeing what’s really important here. What’s really important is the fact that Junior actually decided to be different and accomplish something in life, even though all the people around him didn’t.

This is a really amazing book filled with humor but also really important lessons about life in general. Even though Junior goes through some struggles he makes it through and maybe even changes the ways of his reservation.