gitli57's review
challenging
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
4.0
The jacket blurb say it better than I can. "This rich and dramatic novel, threaded with humor, by one of our finest writers presents a powerful picture of Maori in modern times."
gabriellachipol's review
3.5
i love patricia grace so much but it gets minus points after spending a year of my life re-reading this for my diss
nicolaanaru's review
Patricia Grace’s novel Dogside Story draws many parallels to Potiki: It is set by a small town (Tolaga Bay, which is also the setting for The Whale Rider and Broken Tikanga), a baby born of a taboo coupling is saved from being thrown into the sea, and the community grapples with modernity and gentrification (although this is spurred on by members of the iwi rather than outside contractors). From there, the easily-identifiable parallels cease - while I found Potiki to be charming, I found Dogside Story to be somewhat tedious.
The backbone of the story is simple enough - a brother and sister have an incestuous relationship as young teenagers, and a decade later the brother, Te Rua, decides to take responsibility for his daughter Kiri, who has been under the care of two neglectful aunts. His sister, Ani Wainoa, lives overseas. The sub-plot of the story is that an enterprising family member has decided to lease out camping spots throughout the iwi land, and cash-in on holiday-goers seeking a memorable experience during the Y2K new year.
I struggled with this book because while I found it to be very dense, I did not really get any emotion from it. Some of this is positive - the relationship between Ani Wainoa and Te Rua and its consequences are portrayed without violence, shame, or hysterics (very skillfully examined here by Ann Pistacchi) - it doesn’t really seem to be anything that the family ruminates or suffers from. However, as a reader, I also didn’t get much of a sense of what Kiri - the child, the one most impacted by all of this - felt or wanted. We get glimpses of her life and the neglect she struggles with, it is briefly mentioned she is unhappy in her new school, but she is largely seemingly indifferent and inactive in making her wants, fears, grievances known. Instead of this depth - and perhaps wanting it is too simple - we instead get a large ensemble-cast of the extended whānau and visitors to Tolaga Bay. Overall, I found this narrative to be too removed from itself for me to engage emotionally, or to feel as if anything was at stake.
For that matter what was the use of the wharenui itself if there was to be no family, if there were to be no speakers, no one to call the people home, no one to look after the visitors or retell the stories, no one under the beams to create the up-drafts and down-draughts. Where would be breathing?
kimberlyallen011's review
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Child abuse, and Car accident
Moderate: Drug use, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent
More...