Best of Kit

by Erika Krouse, Review 24 of 2024

All you need to know about the premise of this collection of short stories is in the title. Each story is quite literally about strangers saving each other from a variety of perilous and/or strange situations. I found these stories unsettling as I listened to them, a testimony to the storytelling and narrators, and really satisfying to pick apart and think through later.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this audiobook for review purposes.

Content warning: nearly all of them

Who Gets to Be Native in America

by Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz, Review 23 of 2024

“What routinely fails to show up in the textbook is the modernity of Indian-ness. Native people still live and breathe. Still belly laugh and ugly cry, binge watch and cosplay, ride in Ubers and Doordash sushi. Native people walk over the same bones of settler colonialism as everyone else. We’re asked to bring a covered dish to Friendsgiving or to go in on a cabin airbnb over Columbus Day weekend.”

– Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz

This book fills in the gaps where textbooks fail. The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America is an exploration of the history of indigenous identity in the United States. Lowry Schuettpelz describes both her own relationship with her tribe and the historical context that created it. This book is a satisfying blend of policy description, history, and personal anecdotes. Most importantly, it highlights just how important seemingly small distinctions in rules and policies can have generational impacts, a timely message for those in the US.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this audiobook for review purposes.