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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A love story?, May 4, 2000
I've taught this book to my high school senior English class for the past three years. They enjoy it quite a bit--much to their collective suprise. I'm fascinated by the fact that other reviews have described this as a love story. One of the issues that always comes up in class is Summer's motivation for helping Hatter. Is he doing it for her or for himself? If he is doing it for himself, is he motivated by naiveté, altruism, or selfishness--does he want to "prove" how he alone can save Hatter and thereby confirm his prejudice that he is superior to Levering and Winton? I would recommend this book not as a love story, but as one that causes us to question our own motives for helping, and perhaps for loving, other people.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A give and take relationship between 2 unlikely individuals, July 28, 1999
By A Customer
This book is basically about a white Indian Bureau doctor trying to save a helpless Navajo girl from self-destruction. The author writes wonderfully as she describes the growing relationship between the two different people. It ends tragically, and this book should become a required reading book for all.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling and well-written story, November 20, 2005
The story of the unwilling, gradual, and compulsive involvement of a young anglo doctor working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs with a younger, much-abandoned Navajo teen-ager kept drawing me back to finish the book in consecutive sittings. The author writes very well, and the book flows smoothly, never reading artificially or feeling contrived. The characters are both familiar (the oily, self-serving, bureaucratic, director Winton and the young, idealistic, somewhat directionless, and indecisive Dr. Teague)and compelling (the dedicated, capable, and dead-ended Nurse Rhinehart and the often-betrayed, many times-abandoned, innocent/worldly wise, woman-child Hatter Fox). There are larger themes and questions raised, and other reviewers have commented on them: non-absorption of visible minority persons into the homogeneous larger society; survival of conquered cultures; and an individual's personal responsibility for others. I loved the book; as I knew it would about thirty pages in, it made me sad. No new insights were gained, but the read was well worth it.
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