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I wept the whole way through it. This book is marvelous. It bleeds empathy and compassion and is one of the most sincere, gut-real, open-eyed, forgiving, hopeful novels I've read this year so far. I love this book. The wit and charm of the teenage boy narrator kept me giggling and grinning, and the tone switches were so subtle and genuine and seamless that I would cry and laugh at the same times. Sometimes I would just cry. I am achingly pleased with Alexie and can't wait to pick up another of his works.

Don't read this book if the language is going to distract you. You're literally reading the thoughts of an at-risk teenage boy. But the journey of the book is so important--I want a fistful of boys I've known in the past three years to read it immediately. There is a pain and an honesty and love for goodness that hurts me just thinking back on the novel. I want to read it every year so I remember what it taught me.

I love that it's a hopeful book. I love that it is quirky and bizarre and so brilliantly conceived. The illustrations of society and history are bitter and raw and, yes, I want to say important again. I feel like everyone should read this and let themselves be changed a little bit today. I will encourage my own teenage children to read it when I have them, I don't care what kind of language it has. There is no sex, but lots of allusions to sexual molestations. Another warning.

But seriously, if these things aren't going to bother you, it is well worth listening to this narrator kid for the day it takes you to read it. The human empathy you achieve is worth it. Five stars. And a grin.