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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 6, So What Have We Learned Today?

I don’t know. I really can’t answer this question. If, regardless of my nitpicking (or perhaps in spite of it), this book still calls to you, I hope you have your fun with it. And if you strongly disagree with me, then scream into the void, and we can have lovely debates about this one piece of literature.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: 4/10

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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 5, Concerning Séx Stuff (content warning)

Nota bene-- I would like to preface this part with the fact that the author, Sherman Alexie, has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times. If this information bars you from properly enjoying this section, I will harbor no ill will if you decide not to read on.

I will admit my bias. I am a prude. I do not appreciate my sex and my media intersecting. Regardless, Alexie writes some passages in here that I think even people with normal sex tolerances cringe at. So Junior is a 14-year-old boy. Teenage boys have sex drives. I get that. That’s cool, that’s chill. My issue is not that there is sex in a book aged at high school audiences. My issue is that Alexie writes a lot of concerning passages sexualizing minors that are tangential to the plot. For my paper, I had to analyze Junior’s staring at the underwear of a 14-year-old girl during a sports game. There was no need for that. It had exactly nothing to do with the plot. Sexuality is one thing, over sexualization of minors written by an author who has a track record of sexual harassment is another. Eww. Gross. No. Bye.

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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 4, Poorly Handled Characters

Alexie has this little bad habit of having his characters bring something up, and then never mention it again. My favorite examples are Penelope and Roger.

So Roger we meet early on, he’s kind of a racist bully to Junior, and then Junior hits him and then they respect each other. So this guy says some undeniably racist stuff, right? And after that scene it’s just never mentioned again. Now he’s like a golden boy who is on varsity basketball and he’s going to college and he’s a really great and supportive guy to Junior. So why did he say all that racist stuff???? Was he being pressured by his friends? Did he hold those beliefs but then had a change of heart? We. Don’t. Know. Alexie just drops the angle like ⅓ of the way through. And it’s just never mentioned again by anyone. Junior doesn’t mention how their relationship started off bad, but then turned good, he doesn’t tell anyone, so we can’t see how other Reardon kids view Roger. Would they be surprised? We don’t know.

The character that I loathe even more though is Penelope, Junior’s girlfriend. So she starts off as a mean girl, then Junior finds out that she struggles with bulimia, then they go out. This is the exact same problem that was with Roger, but now it’s even worse. I care very deeply about representation of eating disorders, not because I’ve had one, but because I think that they’re a debilitating mental illness that can kill you, and I want them to be seen that way. So let’s see the tact and grace Alexie has with handling this sensitive issue. Junior makes fun of her for smelling like vomit but trying to cover it up. Even while Penelope is unloading a lot of mental baggage on Junior, his mind drifts elsewhere because he is so bored with the conversation. Then they never mention it ever again. 0/10, would not read again.

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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 3, the Tonal Issues

So this book is supposed to be a comedy, right? And the jokes are… alright. I think I laughed once, but that was it. It’s not really my brand of humor, if you like it, good for you. But also, it wants to be a social commentary. And it’s not really a satire, it just jumps from funny to sad like a four-year-old in puddles, which makes it a very jarring read. And sometimes the funny bleeds into the sad, which is even weirder, because I know that I should be feeling sad but also this is trying to be funny and it sort of muddles everything. I think the two worst parts of this are when Junior’s Grandma dies and when Mary dies. Junior’s Grandma got killed by a drunk driver, and at her funeral this rich white guy comes and says that he has some clothing that belonged to her, but then Junior’s Mom looks at it and it turns out that the stuff belonged to a whole other tribe. Then everyone at the funeral laughed. Oh yeah, this was at Grandma’s funeral. I get the whole theme of “laughter bringing everyone together” and whatnot, but I feel like there could have been something funnier that could have happened, because that just sounds like an awkward interaction. So later on, Junior learns that his sister, Mary, who moved to Montana, died in a house fire. Very sad. But right before that, the guidance counselor who tells him gives him a hug, and he gets a boner, and the punchline is that Junior heard that his sister died while being turned on. That’s some pretty hard news. So in both these scenes, there’s the same issue. I think that Alexie is going for a kind of tonal whiplash thing, where things are going very well and then boom smack sadness and it reminds you of the fragility of happiness and the impermanence of life and all that deep junk, but Alexie doesn’t give that sadness time to breathe, time to sit there. We don’t feel the sad that a minor character death is supposed to make you feel.

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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 2, Crappy Writing

So this book is the frickin antithesis of show don’t tell. Most of the plot is just exposited to us through Junior’s voice, which, to its credit, is at least a little distinctive. But homeboy just glosses over so much of his life. Like we get— what? — a few normal classes, two basketball games, a little bit of Christmas, and then everyone dies. I’ve read other books before that are very tell-don't show-y (like the Bad Seed), but at least there it seemed like a stylistic choice, here it just seems like lazy writing. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be Junior’s journal or what, the title implies that it is, but we never get a diegetic explanation, which is super annoying. I think the worst issue with the writing is that we aren’t able to get to know any of the other characters. The Grandma who died? She gets like 4 lines of dialogue and then Junior explains why she’s great in the lead up to her death scene. Mary? No dialogue. She emails Junior, like, twice. They even have her move to Montana so that they can ignore her more easily. The author also puts in these little drawings throughout the book, since Junior wants to be a cartoonist. That’s fine, that’s cool, that’s chill, but what if we put some of those doodles into, like, literary devices? Just a thought, just a thought.

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the Absolutely False Diary of a Full Time Predator, or, Why I Hated Part Time Indian-- Part 1, Summary

I had to read the Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, written by Sherman Alexie; I had to analyze the use of color in reference to hope, and I have come to the conclusion that this book is very bad. Now I am going to complain about this bad book on the internet, and there's nothing you can do to stop me. So if you don’t know Part Time Indian (first of all, congratulations), here’s a summary: So there’s this kid named Junior who lives on a Native American Reservation with his Mom, Dad, Grandma, sister, Mary, and best friend Rowdy. Junior struggles with a lot of disabilities, so he gets picked on by most of the people in his Tribe. He goes to this all white school called Reardon and he makes friends with this nerd named Gordy, this Jock named Roger, and he even gets a girlfriend named Penelope. Because Junior “abandoned” his Tribe, everyone there hates him even more now, including Rowdy. So it’s a pretty normal high school coming of age story, and then it takes a hard left when Junior’s Grandma dies, then his dad’s friend dies, then his effing sister Mary dies, too. Then Rowdy pitties him and now they’re friends again. The End.