“Between Earth and Sky” by Amanda Skenandore

Title: Between Earth and Sky
Author: Amanda Skenandore
Publisher:  Kensington Books
Year: 2018    
Genre(s): historical fiction
Part of a Series: No

Rating: 

Why I read it: Once Upon a Book Club pick

Summary: Alma Mitchell is surprised when the morning newspaper contains an article about a her childhood friend and that he is suspected of murdering a federal agent. She convinces her husband to go from Philadelphia to Wisconsin to help him. Going back to Wisconsin and facing Harry or Asku forces Alma to consider their time at a school meant to assimilate Indigenous children into white culture and challenge the lies she has told herself.

Review: I am behind on my book club selections and still working through them. This one was sent to me in 2019. It makes me wonder if it would still have been a selection now or if the people who run the club would’ve been more critical of it.

I wonder if I would’ve been more critical if I had read it then.

But I read it now and so 2024 me will be reviewing it.

The book is clearly well-researched, especially regarding the timeframes in which it is set. We bounce between a few time periods stretching through the 1870s to the 19-aughts. Skenandore captures American society and beliefs well.

She also is able to portray Indigenous cultures, traditions, beliefs and language well. This is all important for the story she is trying to tell and I do commend her for that.

Her writing shines best when she’s highlighting the terrible treatment the Indigenous peoples suffered at the hands of Americans. How they were treated at the school Alma’s father ran and the utter disdain everyone treated them under the guise of “saving” them. Or how they were cheated by the federal agents. How they were sold a dream by the government but in fact given a nightmare.

So why the low score? And why I wonder if it would’ve been more scrutinized if chosen now?

Because this story about the Indigenous is centered around a white woman.

I think I understand why Skenandore decided to use a white woman as her narrator but I feel it still fell flat. Especially as she started to lean on some rather cliche plot points, including one I figured out the second she introduced a “bad boy” character. I was disappointed she went in that direction as I felt it centered Alma’s pain rather than the pain of the Indigenous characters, who never seem to end up as fully fleshed out characters. All seem to exist just to prop Alma up.

Overall, I think my main problem is that I don’t really feel that Alma had lasting change by the end of the book. I felt she kept learning the same lesson over and over but she refused to let it stick. By the time I closed the book, I didn’t think Alma’s life was changed all that much. I feel like she would just return to her life and not really think of her Indigenous friends again.

And in the end, Alma hurt the story the most.

Bottom line: An important story to tell but maybe not through the right lens.

Sex: One scene

Moonlight Musing

What would you do if someone forced you to give up everything in your life?