Customer Reviews

Great read
Absolutely wonderful. Three women. Three intertwined lives - like braiding "the rhythm of three strands, the whispers of coming and going, of twisting and tying and blending, of catching and of letting go..."

What a twisting river!
I had to read this book for a class, but once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. The identities of each character are so distinct and well-written that you begin to believe you are there with the character. Dorris provides a great insight of family and womanhood. There are so many surprises and jolts along the way, I just LOVED it. The book really reminds me of people today, of the old generations before us and how they see the new group. Very good book indeed. Plus its an easy read.

A Very Good Story
"I sit on the bed at a crooked angle, one foot on the floor, my hip against the tent of Mom's legs, my elbows on the hospital table."
So starts "A Yellow Raft in Blue Water," one story told in turns by mother, daughter, and granddaughter. When I first heard about this, I was looking for a book for school. It looked intriguing, so I chose it. By page 50, I was having difficulty putting the book down. The first part of the book is told by Rayona, a 15 year old girl with a Native American mother and an African American father, and the basic plot and the outcome is revealed. Then the story switches to Christine, the mother of Rayona, and the story is embellished and added to, until finally Ida takes over. Ida is Christine's mother and Rayona's grandmother, and she finally supplies the last piece of a story spanning three generations. The only pieces that are not so great are the ending, which seemed a little clunky and unresolved, and the end of each of the sections, especially Rayona's. This is overall a very good book, and I recommend it.

Portrait of the Outsider at 15
Dorris's "Yellow Raft on Blue Water" is less about American Indian life than about the dangers of growing up in this strange, rich, loosely-jointed society that we've built in America. Particularly when you have no help from your family. Rayona, at 15, is an outsider in the white world of Seattle because her mother is Indian and her father black. She's equally an outsider on the reservation, to which her mother returns her, because of her father and her years on the Coast. The first eight chapters, told by Rayona, are splendid. The next eight, told by her wildly irresponsible and conflicted mother, are a bit less so. The final four, in the voice of her grandmother, supply the answers to the puzzles but remain mechanical. Not a great novel but a good one with some fine passages.

Revelations from three generations
This is a great book full of revelations about three generations of women. The mother in the story is very ill and trying to think of the best way to help her daughter. She decides to go back to the Indian reservation where she was born. Each woman keeps her personal thoughts to herself and only through their stories told to the reader do we find out the things they don't tell their own family. Well worth the read.