Book Review: Morning Girl by Michael Dorris

This book wasn’t really all that memorable. Now mind you, I did really enjoy it, but it’s something where I can say “that was a good book” and never read it again. 

Likes:

I really enjoyed the “homey” atmosphere of the book. It felt very comforting and happy, like when you look back on good memories from your childhood or when you remember your mom’s home cooked meals. It helped aid in the experience of the novel.

Speaking of family, I also enjoyed the little skirmishes that the two siblings would always get in. It wasn’t really a protagonist versus antagonist conflict, but rather just something that happened in the background. It made the children seem more realistic and more suited to their age groups.

 SPOILER ALERT: I also really enjoyed the ominous ending. It isn’t until the end that the reader gets a sense of then the time period is and who exactly we are talking about here. The very end of the book features men coming on boats to explore the island that Morning Girl lives on. Here is where you learn that this book was set just before and just as the Spanish explored the Americas. It ominous because we as the readers know what is going to happen to Morning Girl and her tribe and she, innocent as she is, is unaware. Of course it is also at this point where all comfort that the story provided disappeared for me.

Dislikes:

Although I enjoyed the comfort that this book provided, it was also a very slow paced book. The small arguments that the siblings got in were pretty much the only thing that kept this book and going and, like I said above, it wasn’t even a driving point of the plot. Even though a book was short, the slow pace of it made it very difficult to want to finish.

The pacing is coupled with the enormous and seemingly random time-lapses. The span of time went from a few hours to a few months and Morning Girl didn’t hardly age during the course of the book. There were no memorable events and we didn’t get to see her grow up, which made the time-lapsing pointless in my opinion.

Finally, there was such little conflict in the book that it made everything else feel dream-like. As a reader, I felt disconnected from the book to the point where I did lose track of time and place since everything had been changing so much. I felt so disconnected from the piece that I just accepted everything at face value and didn’t think too deeply about anything until the end. The ending was when I really found out where and when the book was supposed to take place.

All in all, not an entirely memorable read, but good one nonetheless. Despite everything, I still enjoyed the book, although I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it again.