Read it: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's not February 14th, the official launch date of my blog, so why am I posting? Well, I'm fickle and can be easily bought, so when young adult author Jennifer Lynn Barnes posted a blog offering a free book raffle entry for online book reviews, I caved.

I want you to read Sherman Alexie's semi-autobiographical 2007 National Book Award winner - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Yes, it's a young adult novel, but to my adult readers, I guarantee it has as much heart and humor bang-per-page as whatever Oprah's got on her list.

I feel especially compelled to recommend it because during a recent weekend visit to Arizona, I dropped in on a chain store and requested the book for a friend. The response from the bookstore's "information" desk: "What's that?" (This was the same response to my request for Jellicoe Road, this year's American Library Association's Printz recipient.)

So, my answer to "what's that?" is the following:

The story chronicles the freshman year of a sickly kid from an Indian reservation who transfers to an all white school. He's branded a traitor by his people and an outcast by his new classmates. The author doesn't shy away from the realities of rez life: the alcoholism, the lack of employment, the crappy school system, and while the protagonist gets a semi-hollywood happy ending he earns it by taking a lot of knocks along the way .

The story is written in first person male point of view, my least favorite point of view of all time, but the protag's sense of humor and comic sketches (illustrated by Ellen Forney) made me forget how much I dislike it. I blew through the book in a lunch hour during which I cried and laughed out loud in a public courtyard smack in the middle of a financial district at its busiest time. Sure, I got a few stares, and hopefully some people took note of what I was reading.