I can’t stop talking about this book. In this short blog post, you are getting a more detailed report on “The Lost Journals of Sacajawea” by Debra Magpie Earling.

For the first time ever, I feel compelled to write an official review on Amazon for a book. This book is getting mixed reviews, and I want to set the reader straight as this book is not what it appears at first glance.

I give this book a strong 5 plus! Writing is an art, and this book is a masterpiece. Debra Magpie Earling is truly a literary genius.

I started this book and struggled. Struggled to find meaning. Struggled with the clunky, non-structured, “abnormal” writing. I kept reading. This was a book club book. I read it as if it were an assignment. I had picked this book for the group. I had read and loved Earling’s book “Perma Red” and wanted to love this book too. I felt like I was reading a foreign language that was in English.

Around page sixty, things started to flow. I was getting into a rhythm. I stopped trying to decipher this language and let the words pour over me like a lazy river over rocks. Then the words took on a life of their own as they danced across the pages in a finely timed choreography. This book is so intelligent. Once I gave in to it, the book and I were one. Zen reading. I’d never experienced this before. Look what Debra Magpie Earling had done! She has given us an experience, a taste of the essence of not only being a native American woman, but time travel as well. I was part of the earth and all living creatures, not separate, no hierarchy.

I am so grateful for this experience. I read the last page and immediately started over. I wrote down my own dictionary of words to help me keep things straight. I tracked the characters and their relationship to Sacajawea. I paid attention to who was alive and who was in her life via spirit. The first sixty pages did not seem difficult now.

My literary bar has been raised. I was challenged and took that challenge head-on. Please give yourself the courage to keep reading and the grace to let the book enter your soul. Do not try to control this one; the book is in charge, let it happen.