First Impressions of "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden

The first thing that I would like to point out about this book is the style of writing that the author uses. He chooses to separate the chapters of the novel by switching between the two main characters points of view. One chapter you'll be hearing from Xavier's view, speaking of the war he was just sent home from and his experiences with his friend Elijah, and then Niska, talking about her past and the way that she is feeling about Xavier's current health. I can see the author continuing on with this and having each of them go into more detail of their past lives, then flashing forward to their current state in the story. I believe that later on in the story we will hear in graphic detail about how Xavier lost his leg and about how he became addicted to morphine. Speaking of Xavier, I picture him constantly wearing a Canadian army uniform the entire time, I see him having a young slender face with paler skin than the average Canadian Indian would typically have at that time because of his morphine addiction. I picture Niska wearing kind of a stereotypical Canadian Indian outfit, moccasins and a colorful hide poncho, and long braided dark hair, with an elderly wrinkled face. The images of the two main characters are based entirely on stereotype, but it's exactly what I see. The only puzzle that I am trying to put together about the story at the moment is why Xavier was concerned about Elijah when they were paddling through a forest fire, and Elijah was smiling. I understand why he would be worried because that's not exactly a happy scene to be looking at, but I'm wondering if maybe he will go into detail about something in their past that happened to make him concerned, or if something big is going to happen later on in the story that will bring his worry for his friend to life. This book is giving me a pretty good impression of this author, I believe that he is a realist based on the fact that he, a male author, spoke about Niska getting her period for the first time. Most authors in general wouldn't bring that up in a book yet he spoke about it clearly, and although it kind of plays into the story, it was still a shock to me that a man would actually speak about that. I don't know this author and I have't seen a picture of him, but based on the Native words he uses in the novel and the way that he speaks from the characters point of view makes me wonder if he is Native himself. So far the story is making me realize just how much I appreciate the flip between characters, it just spices things up every once in a while so you aren't reading from the same point of view the whole time like in some other stories. I find that if I hit a boring part in the story that I kind of zone out so I just have to try my best to think that if I get through this part, there will be a much more exciting part to follow.