“A future without Rafael felt unfathomable in a way that took me by surprise.”
In a word: Read the thing. I really, really enjoyed this book. 16-year-old Skylar St. Clair is our main character and narrator and this story is all about him. But it’s also a bit more than that. This story is kind of an exploration of Skylar’s feelings about his family and his heritage and his past, and it’s beautiful and sad and uplifting all at once. Skylar’s father has suddenly disappeared, leaving Skylar all alone, and so he ends up being sent to his grandmother on the reservation where he was born but hasn’t seen since he was five. Skylar is half Shoshone Plains First Nations, but he looks completely white and he’s lived off-reservation since he was a child so he knows nothing about that part of himself. He’s terrified when he first arrives on the Nettlebush Reserve, but over the summer he makes friends and is accepted into a community he’s been estranged from for almost 11 years. This story does have romance in it, but it’s mostly about Skylar learning about his roots and his history and how to live in a community that he should’ve been a part of all along. Another thing that this story touches on is all the complicated feelings Skylar has about his mother’s murder, the murderer, and falling in love with the son the murderer left behind. There is nothing really fast-paced happening in the story, it’s a calm and smooth read, and it was totally enjoyable from start to finish. I can’t wait to see what happens in the sequels.
The Summary: (from Goodreads) “Skylar is my name, tragically.”
Sixteen-year-old Skylar is witty, empathetic, sensitive–and mute. Skylar hasn’t uttered a single word since his mother died eleven years ago, a senseless tragedy he’s grateful he doesn’t have to talk about.
When Skylar’s father mysteriously vanishes one summer afternoon, Skylar is placed in the temporary custody of his only remaining relative, an estranged grandmother living on an Indian reservation in the middle of arid Arizona.
Adapting to a brand new culture is the least of Skylar’s qualms. Because Skylar’s mother did not die a peaceful death. Skylar’s mother was murdered eleven years ago on the Nettlebush Reserve. And her murderer left behind a son.
And he is like nothing Skylar has ever known.
[available for purchase at Amazon.ca, Book Depository, and Barnes & Noble]
THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS
The Trigger Warning: This book contains mentions of gore and murder.
The Series: This is the first book in the Gives Light series written by Rose Christo. It’s a series that follows Skylar St. Clair and Rafael Gives Light as they live and love on the Nettlebush Reserve in Arizona. This book details Skylar’s move to the reserve and connecting to his Native American roots, and how he makes friends and family connections.
WHAT I LIKED:
- Skylar and Rafael: These two are seriously adorable. These are two teenage boys who are so different, yet also the same. Skylar St. Clair is 16 years old and has been mute since the age of 5, when the man who killed his mother also tried to kill him (his throat was slashed and he physically cannot make any vocalizations). He was born on an Indian reservation but his father moved them away after the death of his mother and Skylar has been living off-res ever since. He ends up back on the reserve when his father goes missing and the only relative he has that can care for him is his grandmother. Skylar is a gentle boy, and mostly isolated with his only friend being his father, but he eventually flourishes while living on the Nettlebush Reserve. Skylar isn’t really all that shy, so he doesn’t have any trouble making friends with people who are interested in being friends with him. One of those people turns out to be Rafael Gives Light, who was born and raised in Nettlebush and who also happens to be the son of the man who murdered Skylar’s mother. Being the son of Nettlebush’s first (and only, so far) serial killer has made things a bit difficult for Rafael, and it shows in his personality. He sometimes comes off as intimidating and prickly but, as Skylar soon finds out, he’s actually quite caring and friendly. He and Skylar grow close fairly quickly, to the point where they often spend most of their time together and Rafael is able to understand Skylar even though Skylar can’t talk (Skylar communicates primarily in sign language, but Rafael doesn’t know any). They’re both adorable together, and they both have a wealth of feelings for each other and other things. There is no unnecessary drama between them as they accidentally find themselves falling in love with each other, and it’s great.
- The Setting: By far and away, one of the best things about this story (for me) is the Nettlebush Reserve and the people Skylar finds living there. I’ll admit that I know next to nothing about Indian Reservations (I’m not even sure if that’s the correct term to use), so I’m looking at Nettlebush at face value, without all the fuckery going on in the background that I know is there but don’t know the specifics of. The Nettlebush Reserve is a small community and home to the Shoshone Plains tribe. From Skylar’s descriptions of the place I gather that the whole place is pretty rustic (I don’t think most places even have electricity, and the story takes place in 2000). Everyone seems to live in log cabins, the only phone in the place is in the hospital, there are no cars, everyone lives off the land, and there are no stores but there is a sort of bartering/trading system so that everyone can get what they need. It would seem almost idyllic except for the fact that it’s a reservation, which is not exactly ideal. Like I said, my knowledge of the reservations is pretty basic and, although Skylar does find Nettlebush a great place to live, there are things that come up that let us know that it’s not all sunshine and roses. Just looking at the surface of Skylar settling into the community and making friends and connecting with his roots, the reserve seems like a great place to be, and I did like seeing the place through Skylar’s eyes.
- The Community: Another thing I really liked about this book are the side characters. No matter the size of their role, each person from Nettlebush who is introduced serves to make the world come more alive. (The other side characters, mainly all involved with the law off-res, mostly serve to highlight the divide that exists between the reserve and the rest of the world.) The story is told through Skylar’s first-person narrative and is very Skylar-centric, so the people we see the most often are the people Skylar interacts with the most. Rafael is one of those people, natch, but there are a few others he spends quite a bit of time with. There’s his grandmother, Granny, who is his father’s mother and who Skylar is seeing again for the first time in 11 years. She’s a tough old woman who initially comes off as a bit closed off and very stern, but as Skylar gets to know her better he comes to realize that she’s a very warm and protective woman who loves Skylar very much and would probably do anything to keep him safe. Annie Little Hawk is Skylar’s first friend on the reserve. She’s the same age as Skylar and spends most of her time doing the household chores and taking care of her two younger siblings (one of whom is deaf, so Annie is quite good at sign language and she’s initially the only person Skylar can really communicate with). Her and Skylar initially spent a lot of their time together just cooking, but they really start doing a lot more things once they get closer. Aubrey Takes Flight is another new friend Skylar makes through Annie, who Aubrey has a crush on. Aubrey is a bit nerdy and naïve, but he’s a nice boy and very friendly. These are the main characters Skylar gets closest to, but there are so many more interesting people living on the reserve who all have different parts to play in the overall story. There are the members of the tribal council, other children and teens around Skylar’s age, and there’s a bit of a subplot surrounding the other victims of the serial killer who killed Skylar’s mother and how that all sorts itself out. And of course there’s Skylar’s father, Paul Looks Over, who doesn’t show up much in the story but it technically the one who probably played the biggest part, however unintentionally, in getting Skylar back to Nettlebush.
- The Culture: So I am Canadian and also white as all hell, I know just the bare basics about Indian Reservations and First Nations people. The main character in this book is half white-half Shoshone Plains First Nation and, like, 97% of the book takes place on a reserve, so we hear a lot about the place and the kind of people who live on it. The vast majority of the characters are also First Nations, mostly Shoshone but there are some others, and it’s something they take pride in. As a newcomer to the reserve and the culture (even if it is also his own) Skylar has to learn about this new world he’s found himself in, and the reader learns right along with him. Luckily there aren’t any dry expositiony sections in the story, all the information is conveyed naturally through relevant dialogue and Skylar living life. We learn a bit about the way of life in Nettlebush, some very basic history about reserves and the law and how they interact with each other, and we also learn a bit of history and folklore. Whether anything we’re being told is accurate I don’t know, but I believe the author is First Nations and it seems some research went into this so I’m choosing to believe it’s fairly authentic. Either way, it’s all pretty interesting and I enjoyed reading it.
- The Murder: We know right off the bat that the reason why Skylar is mute and lives with his single-parent father is that his mother was murdered on the Nettlebush Reserve 11 years before the story starts. The murderer was Rafael’s father, Eli Gives Light, who isn’t actually in the story. It’s really only his legacy that plays any major role. It doesn’t really come up in a big way until the end of the story, but we do get little bits and pieces here and there about what happened and how it affected everything. Even though we don’t know everything that happened this isn’t a murder mystery. We know who the killer is, the gist of what he did, and how his reign of terror ended. All this has been actively over with for 11 years, when the last killing happened (Skylar’s mother). The reserve has been dealing with the effects since then, which mostly happens in the undertone of the story. It also serves to highlight the relationship between the reserve and the rest of the world, particularly where law enforcement is concerned. I really did like this whole aspect of the story where the murders and the terror are over, but at the same time they’ll never really be over but people still have to live and keep moving.
WHAT I WAS MEH ABOUT:
- The Writing: I’m not saying that the writing is bad; it wasn’t. I wasn’t completely in love with it though. It’s told in first-person perspective of a 16-year-old boy, but that’s not really the impression I got most of the time, sometimes it almost felt like he was a bit younger. Also the writing was kind of flowery, very prose-like and poetic in parts. Which is fine, though not really my thing, and not really the kind of narration one would expect from a teenage boy, especially since Skylar was never portrayed as particularly skilled in writing or poetry or anything. Anyway, like I said, the writing wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t really my thing.
[Gives Light was published July 10, 2012, by the author; it is available both in print and as an ebook]
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