Taste_in_Books's Reviews > The Sentence

What a difference a book makes....
My first reading experience with Erdrich was sadly much less than favourable. I just did not get along with The Night Watchman and was left wondering what all the fuss was about this author.

Then I read The Sentence and it all changed. What a little joyride of a book. Erdrich hooked me from the first page. If I had to point out one major factor that set it apart from The Night Watchman, it would be the writing. It is playful, engaging, witty and rapid. Everything it's predecessor wasn't.

The bookstore setting is perfect, the people who work there were all so interesting and brought alot of indian indigenous backstories with them, even Louise the owner/writer herself popping up was fun, the dreaded pandemic, the daily update leading up to the first lockdown coinciding with The Night Watchman book tour was so compelling and the best Covid fiction I've read so far.
And then all the inside play by play of the atrocious police murder of George Floyd, it's aftermath and how the city of Minneapolis and its people protested and suffered for it was eye opening, riveting and heartbreaking at the same time. It was crushing to read about it in such personal detail. Last but not least, the dear dear characters of Tookie and Pollux. Full of heart, wit, ache, guilt, emotional baggage and so much love.

I think you can guess by now I loved the book.