May 2013 -- A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris

Wow!  Wasn’t that the word we all used for lack of a better means of describing our feeling after reading this novel?  We all had such strong impressions of the three female characters of this book, Rayona, Christine and Ida.  Each section of the book was written about a single character and was brilliantly laid out for us in such a way that we truly felt that we were there overlooking the action.  Each section was enough of a story that it could have stood alone as an entire book on its own. But together the three sections became the entire world for a family that was dysfunctional at times but unbreakable throughout.  We were allowed to see what each of the women saw and we were able to feel what each felt, but we were also able to glimpse what they could not.  We saw how their lives could have been changed if one mother could have said or done one thing differently with regard to her daughter.  The fact that each of these characters could have changed the world for the others was so heartbreaking and yet we did not feel hopelessness in the end.  We so appreciated the writing of Dorris.  The descriptive passages were so real we felt the “dirt under our nails.”  The conversations were so pointed, we knew we could have been the person talking.  In the end, we became a part of the “twisting and tying and blending, of catching and of letting go.”  We were “braided” into the fabric of this book.  This book was a definite 5 stars.