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A review by leahtylerthewriter
The Removed by Brandon Hobson
5.0
"An elder had once taught me not to be afraid of death because there is no death, there is only a change of worlds."
A Cherokee family in Oklahoma, who are struggling to keep it together, prepare to gather for their annual bonfire in honor of their son who was murdered by a police officer 15 years before.
This is my favorite book of 2021. I have read some fabulous fiction this year but nothing stirred my soul quite the way this did. When I finished I was telling my husband about it and he asked if I was sad cuz I wasn't crying (usually my tears stamp the seal of approval). The only response I could come up with was no I'm not sad, I'm flayed. Then I read it again and loved it even more. To miss the Sixth Sense component in this book is to miss half the beauty.
Rotating among four points of view--the mom, the two surviving siblings, and the Great Spirit--Hobson has woven together spiritual realism and raw humanity in a compelling exploration of the lasting bonds of family and the inheritance of generational trauma.
Although her husband is suffering from dementia, her living son is a drug addict, and she has battled with depression since her teenage son was killed, Maria agrees to take in a foster child who provides a link to their lost son in a way they never imagined possible.
The result is one of the most wanting and tender depictions of a family struggling to remain whole when their sanctity and security has been stripped from their bloodline for hundreds of years. Guided by the Great Spirit we are shown how the cycle repeats over and over like a nightmarish and prescient dream.
A topic of conversation lately has been if the need for men to write the female point of view exists in modern-day literature. I have to say if Hobson is the author, it absolutely does. His depiction of these women, both mother and daughter, is realistic and sensitive and strong.
Heavily exploring the thin veil between life and the afterlife, the modern day embodiment of myths and legends, and with characters so real and accessible they feel like friends, this story whispered directly into my heart and filled my soul.
"Death opened like a cave into his body, a passage to somewhere and I entered it, collapsing into him."
A Cherokee family in Oklahoma, who are struggling to keep it together, prepare to gather for their annual bonfire in honor of their son who was murdered by a police officer 15 years before.
This is my favorite book of 2021. I have read some fabulous fiction this year but nothing stirred my soul quite the way this did. When I finished I was telling my husband about it and he asked if I was sad cuz I wasn't crying (usually my tears stamp the seal of approval). The only response I could come up with was no I'm not sad, I'm flayed. Then I read it again and loved it even more. To miss the Sixth Sense component in this book is to miss half the beauty.
Rotating among four points of view--the mom, the two surviving siblings, and the Great Spirit--Hobson has woven together spiritual realism and raw humanity in a compelling exploration of the lasting bonds of family and the inheritance of generational trauma.
Although her husband is suffering from dementia, her living son is a drug addict, and she has battled with depression since her teenage son was killed, Maria agrees to take in a foster child who provides a link to their lost son in a way they never imagined possible.
The result is one of the most wanting and tender depictions of a family struggling to remain whole when their sanctity and security has been stripped from their bloodline for hundreds of years. Guided by the Great Spirit we are shown how the cycle repeats over and over like a nightmarish and prescient dream.
A topic of conversation lately has been if the need for men to write the female point of view exists in modern-day literature. I have to say if Hobson is the author, it absolutely does. His depiction of these women, both mother and daughter, is realistic and sensitive and strong.
Heavily exploring the thin veil between life and the afterlife, the modern day embodiment of myths and legends, and with characters so real and accessible they feel like friends, this story whispered directly into my heart and filled my soul.
"Death opened like a cave into his body, a passage to somewhere and I entered it, collapsing into him."