Did you prefer Joe’s voice, Norma’s, or the combination? Were there other characters you wished could give their point of view?
I enjoyed hearing both of their voices. I also would have liked to have heard from Mae. I think she would have a lot to say
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I preferred Joe’s voice, but agree that it would have been interesting to hear Mae’s point of view.
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I think if we’d heard Lenore’s voice it might have made us more sympathetic to her.
I think we needed both Joe’s and Norma’s voices. Joe because of the guilt he felt being the last person to see Ruthie. Norma so we the reader know what happened to her. I did not prefer one over the other.
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Once again, the author has chosen to tell the story in First Person but she uses two people to tell the story. It is difficult to find a book these days that does not alternate between several people, places, time zones, or centuries. Once again, I found it a bit annoying because this method is not “original” any longer.
I think the combination was good. Norma was portrayed as a normal girl, while Joe seemed to be pathetic and so guilt ridden he punished himself his whole life, how sad.
I liked the juxtaposition of hearing both Joe’s and Norma’s voices which made it easy to follow the storyline. Although Norma included conversations with Aunt Jane, I think a few chapters with Aunt Jane’s voice woven into the story in the latter half of the book would have provided some great perspective and interesting observations about Norma as well as the rest of the family.
I liked Joe’s voice the most. He displayed his feelings, his happiness, his sadness, his grief. You couldn’t help but understand where he was coming from. You may not have liked his actions but you could understand him.
I was unable to understand or relate to Norma.
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I felt like I could understand where each character was coming from, and liked both voices. I do think, like @Patricia_Hawley, that Joe’s voice was better developed.
I didn’t think about a third perspective being incorporated, but some of you suggested Mae and I think that would’ve been a welcome addition. I enjoyed both, but, certainly, Joe was the voice that made me the most emotional. Lenore ruined his entire life and it was sad to see it. She ruined much of Ruthie’s, too, but it happened in a quiet way unlike Joe’s that was so filled with anger, sadness, and self-destruction.
I liked hearing the voices of all but preferred being
a silent observer of the voice of Norma as she worked diligently to unravel clues she discovered throughout her life.
I did not prefer one voice to the other—they were both strong, interesting, and necessary to the story. I think more voices would have been distracting, and would have diluted the depth of the focus on how much we are shaped by our early years, our families and their heritage, from the earliest years; therefore, how harmful it was for the government to separate native children from their families!
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I liked both voices of Joe and Norma. They were different and brought different emotions to the story. May’s voice would’ve been a nice point of view.