Split Tooth
Split ToothTanya Tagaq
Buy on Amazon

Split Tooth (2018)

Tanya Tagaq

Others: Positive

Split Tooth is a 2018 novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq. Based in part on her own personal journals, the book tells the story of a young Inuk woman growing up in the Canadian Arctic in the 1970s. The book has been described as a blend of fiction, memoir, poetry and Inuit folklore. Characterized by the publisher as magic realism, it has also been seen as an example of Daniel Heath Justice's critical concept of "wonderworks" or literature by Indigenous North American writers that defies conventional Western notions of literary genres. The book won the Indigenous Voices Award for English Prose in 2019. The novel was also longlisted for the 2018 Giller Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.

ISBN:
9781913505806
Length:
193 pages

Genres: fantasy, literary fiction, poetry

Lists: …

Similar books

1 of 6
  • Mrs Death Misses Death

    Salena Godden

    2021 · 264 pages · 8 reviews

    Others: Mostly positive

    "Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death, but until now hadn't met Death in person - a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen. Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death's scribe, and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a vessel and conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity. As the two reflect on the losses they have experienced - or, in the case of Mrs Death, facilitated - their friendship grows into a surprising affirmation of hope, resilience and love. All the while, despite her world-weariness, Death must continue to hold humans' fates in her hands, appearing in our lives when we least expect her . . ."--Publisher.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    Also fantasy and literary fiction
    64%
    On the same reading list
    25%
    BooksandLala loved both
    11%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Girls burn brighter

    Shobha Rao

    2018 · 405 pages · 5 reviews

    Others: Positive

    A searing, electrifying debut novel set in India and America, for readers of Rupi Kaur, about the extraordinary bond between two girls driven apart by circumstances but relentless in their search for one another. Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them. They are poor. They are driven. And they are girls. When Poornima was just a toddler, she was about to fall into a river. Her mother, beside herself, screamed at her father to grab her. But he hesitated: "I was standing there, and I was thinking...she's just a girl. Let her go...That's the thing with girls, isn't it...You think, Push. That's all it would take, Just one little push." After her mother's death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to take care of her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond the arranged marriage her father is desperate to secure for her. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls' perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within them.--Amazon.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On the same reading list
    67%
    Also literary fiction
    22%
    BooksandLala loved both
    11%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Freshwater

    Akwaeke Emezi

    2018 · 240 pages · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    Both a recounting of trauma and its impacts, as well as a retelling of a Nigerian fable. The main character's multiple experiences of trauma are retold and the author unflinchingly explores how they are impacted (e.g., self-harm, dissociation). The character's psychology is viewed through a non-Western lens.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On the same reading list
    59%
    Also literary fiction
    27%
    BooksandLala loved both
    14%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • 21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act

    Bob Joseph

    2018 · 160 pages · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    A guide to understanding the Indian Act and its impact on generations of Indigenous Peoples, as well as an examination of how Indigenous Peoples can return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On the same reading list
    62%
    Similar descriptions
    23%
    BooksandLala loved both
    15%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • Five Little Indians

    Michelle Good

    2020 · 304 pages · 2 reviews

    Others: Positive

    WINNER: Canada Reads 2022 WINNER: Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction WINNER: Amazon First Novel Award WINNER: Kobo Emerging Author Prize Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist: Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize Finalist: BC & Yukon Book Prize Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards National Bestseller; A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year; A CBC Best Book of the Year; An Apple Best Book of the Year; A Kobo Best Book of the Year; An Indigo Best Book of the Year Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention. Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission. Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew. With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On 2 of the same lists
    52%
    Also literary fiction
    26%
    Similar descriptions
    22%
    Personalize your recommendations
  • There There

    Tommy Orange

    2018 · 304 pages · 6 reviews

    Others: Overwhelmingly positive

    "Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine has such a powerful and urgent Native American voice exploded onto the landscape of contemporary fiction. Tommy Orange's There There introduces a brilliant new author at the start of a major career. "We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. There will be death and playing dead, there will be screams and unbearable silences, forever-silences, and a kind of time-travel, at the moment the gunshots start, when we look around and see ourselves as we are, in our regalia, and something in our blood will recoil then boil hot enough to burn through time and place and memory. We'll go back to where we came from, when we were people running from bullets at the end of that old world. The tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, that we've been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, only to die in the grass wearing feathers." Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions--intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. Fierce, angry, funny, groundbreaking--Tommy Orange's first novel is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. There There is a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. A glorious, unforgettable debut"--

    Why?

    What made the match, strongest first

    On 2 of the same lists
    68%
    Also literary fiction
    30%
    Similar descriptions
    2%
    Personalize your recommendations

Reviews1

BooksandLala
Loved it

Like some of these are my favorite books and some of them are my least favorite books, which I think is really interesting. loved Split Tooth, loved Katherine House, but then really disliked The Starving Saints and Cuda Cross

Review 1 of 4