Reading is like breathing...

The Place Where They Cried contains 977 pages. DNF after having read 469 pages or 48 %. I will refrain from rating the book. Review posted January 1, 2013

"Hear me," I said. "We will not pander to your demands. You are not our leaders. You do not have authority over us. This country is our country. This country has been our home for hundreds of thousands of years. You came to our home to live with us; and we accept that. And we respect it. And now you will respect us, too."

Paiute means Water People.

"From the sea emerged the earth," said the Wise Woman, her weak voice carrying through the cold air. The desert is so fickle; hot as the heart of the sun, but only so long as the sun stands in the sky. "And from the earth emerged all the creatures that lived on it. All but one. We Water People did not come from the earth. We came from the sea itself. And so observe it; in everything you do, in every struggle you face, you must be as resilient as the water from which you were born."

(…)Without his facade I might not have noticed how golden his skin looked when the sun reached for it, scars and all. How very much his hair on the wind resembled a river of blood. He made me think of the lifeblood that pulses beneath the planet's surface. The earth has a heartbeat of its own. He, in my eyes, was that heartbeat.
"I think," Gives Grain said, "you are in love with me."

Expectations suck big time.
Rose Christo's magical Gives Light really blew me away, and when I started reading The Place Where They Cried I was expecting another fantastic story. I feel totally bummed that after struggling through 469 pages I had to abandon the book because I just didn't feel "it". Also, quite often I had a hard time to distinguish between the two main protagonists' voices. On the other hand, I might take the blame because I couldn't focus on the story. What irritated me as well were the very, very generously used exclamation marks and semicolons. And I honestly don't get it why this book required almost 1000 pages. It was so incredibly loooong-winded.

I hit rough patches all the time and during a majority of the story I felt totally bored. Sure, I experienced some very beautiful moments where the author's talent really shone through…

There were very few matters over which I retained cognizance. The subtle chill rising like fog from the iced cavern floor. The sound the waterfalls made outside when they crashed into the lake. The shape of Gives Grain's mouth on mine, small and round, a budding prairie flower. The smell of him, like distant sea salts; the taste of him, like fresh rain and kindness. He tasted like kindness. If you were there to see what I saw--the blacks of his eyes like the wet tide at night, his eyes sliding closed in surrender--to feel what I felt--his eyelashes like feathers on my cheeks, his reddened lips stealing my strength away with a heartfelt apology--you would have been powerless to prevent yourself from thinking the same. 

...but overall it pains me very much to admit that the story and its characters couldn't hold my interest. It was some kind of a lackluster read for me. Besides, I just felt that reading another rough 500 pages only to end up depressed wasn't worth it ultimately. *sad face*



Looking at the high average rating, this must be another case ofit's me and not the book. In fact, it's not a bad book by any means, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Read it. I really hope you'll enjoy it more than I did.