The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

When sitting down to read a book, there are certain things that are expected. One of the things is that there are a “good guy” and a “bad guy”. Every book must have some type of adversary that moves the plot along. But what if the main adversary of the story is also the hero?

That is what happens in The Sentence by Louise Erdrich.  Every person in this book is not only the villain in their own stories but also the hero. Tookie makes a choice that she is forced to deal with every day for the rest of her life. Pollox may seem like a decent good guy, but he too is dealing with the choices that he made and how it affects the life of Tookie and his daughter Hetta. Hetta makes a decision that haunts her. But that is life and life is messy.

That is what this book is about, how people are messy and what they can do about it.

One thing that Erdrich did in this book that I absolutely loved was how she wrote the side characters. We know just enough about them to fill the roll that is needed. Many authors fill in more than what is needed and I want to know more about the side characters than the main characters. In this book that was not the case. I was fully invested in Tookie and her messy human life.

Check for trigger warnings on this book as the author incorporates real life events that have happened in the past 7 years.