Born in Canada just 12 months apart to a \u201cyoung urban Indigenous couple full of dreams,\u201d Alexander and Andria struggle with self-worth and identity in this debut by Anishinaabekweauthor Angeconeb. The \u201chonorary twins,\u201d Andy the painter and Ally the poet, are mirrors of each other, but despite their close connection, they keep their struggles with emptiness hidden. Andy feels like \u201ca hollow shell,\u201d and Ally is consumed by addiction. The first section focuses on Andy\u2019s feelings, relayed in vignettes and letters that begin \u201cDear Brother,\u201d as she describes watching Ally succumb to addiction. Unable to cope following his overdose death, she pushes friends away. After she discovers a shoebox of Ally\u2019s poems, she\u2019s confronted with the depth of his pain. The second section shifts to Ally\u2019s perspective, revealing his internal battles through his poetry: \u201ci have no identity, \/ no sense of self.\u201d In the final section, Andy begins to face the weight of her grief, her feelings of powerlessness, and the ways she and her older brother lived through one another. She embarks on a healing journey, finding strength through friends and connecting with her cultural heritage across generations of colonial cultural dislocation. This introspective, character-driven novel in which events are relayed after the fact moves slowly, offering a powerful exploration of identity and trauma through its emotional depth.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Born in Canada just 12 months apart to a \u201cyoung urban Indigenous couple full of dreams,\u201d Alexander and Andria struggle with self-worth and identity in this debut by Anishinaabekweauthor Angeconeb. The \u201chonorary twins,\u201d Andy the painter and Ally the poet, are mirrors of each other, but despite their close connection, they keep their struggles with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2220,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}