By the time Cedar begins to understand how deeply the world is changing, how desperately evolution seems to be going backward, it is too late. She's already pregnant. It isn't long before she can see the writing on the wall: if you are pregnant, you no longer have autonomy and in order to evade capture, Cedar makes plans. Reconnecting with her Ojibwe roots, she tries to find people among whom she can be safe in a world that is quickly disintegrating into a dystopian nightmare.
I really enjoyed the dystopian slant of this book, the twist on the sort of disaster that our own biology could create. Cedar's journey is harrowing and for me, the plot device of the entire novel being a letter to her unborn child worked really well. All we know is what Cedar knows (or believes she knows) and every once and while the book has this sort of hallucinatory feeling, where I'm not sure that what's happening is real or a dream or a vision, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it made me feel like I didn't have my footing in an unsettling way. I found myself very engaged in the novel and the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied after all I'd been through with Cedar, but I don't think it was a BAD way to end the book. I'd just have liked fewer loose ends. I appreciate how Erdrich makes me as a reader be more aware of Tribal issues and that her Native American characters are nuanced and capable. Interesting book.
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