I recommend The Round House for readers who enjoy a good story with a clear view into a culture different than their own unless, of course, you are an Ojibwe tribal member in which case, it's just a good story. Ha. What I liked best about this book was how central the setting was and how well that worked. Almost the entire novel takes place on the reservation and you feel how that insularity is both a comfort and a weight. The comfort comes from the closeness of their families, where neighbors make casseroles for one another with "commodity" ingredients, and participate together in sacred traditions like sweat lodge ceremonies. The weight - besides the conflict over prosecuting crimes which is the main conflict of the book - seems to be about the loss of tradition in the modern age. It struck me as sad that Joe gets closest to the history of the place only via the night-time mumblings of grandfather Mooshum, who tells the story of how the round house came to be. Most of the time, Joe's friends only have the rather unholy aim of searching for beer and weed to pass the time. It seems sad: the Catholic church making inroads, an expensive golf course cutting in, and the families there kind of just surviving, resorting to alcohol and occasional violence. Yet, told in Joe's adolescent voice the book doesn't read terribly sad in a way that is both positive and negative. Given what happened to his mother, I have to say I found it a bit distasteful to listen to Joe rhapsodizing about boobs and his friend's conquests. It's just strange to switch from the weightiness of the events to the light, teenage banter between Joe and his friends or to imagine a "wise", elderly Native American woman who can't get enough of describing her sexual exploits. I think this is purposeful of Erdrich - to break some of the stereotypes that we have (Native Americans are people after all, not magical beings) - but I did grimace here and there. I found this very interesting and will pick up another by this author.