For the first time in a long time, Darius learns to love himself no matter what external forces attempt to squash his confidence. Sohrab teaches Darius what friendship is really about: loyalty, honesty, and someone who has your back in a football (soccer) match. But all that changes when Darius meets Sohrab, a Bahá’í boy, in Yazd. When he arrives in Iran, learning to play the Persian card game Rook, socializing, and celebrating Nowruz with a family he had never properly met before is all overwhelming and leaves Darius wondering if he’ll ever truly belong anywhere. He’s mocked for his name and nerdy interests at Chapel Hill High School in Portland, Oregon, and doesn’t speak enough Farsi to communicate with his Iranian relatives either.
Iranian on his mother’s side and white American on his father’s side, Darius never quite fits in. When Darius’ grandfather becomes terminally ill, Darius, along with his parents and younger sister, travels to Iran for the first time in his life. Junior’s keen cartoons sprinkle the pages as his fluid narration deftly mingles raw feeling with funny, sardonic insight.ĭarius Kellner suffers from depression, bullying by high school jocks, and a father who seems to always be disappointed in him. their best friends” to “the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers.” He also realizes how many other tribes he has, from “the tribe of boys who really miss. The reservation’s poverty and desolate alcoholism offer early mortality and broken dreams, but Junior’s knowledge that he must leave is rooted in love and respect for his family and the Spokane tribe. Rowdy rejects him, feeling betrayed, and their competing basketball teams take on mammoth symbolic proportions. Despite his parents’ frequent lack of gas money (they’re a “poor-ass family”), racism at school and many crushing deaths at home, he manages the year. Soon after they start freshman year, Junior boldly transfers from a school on the Spokane reservation to one in a tiny white town 22 miles away. Alexie nimbly blends sharp wit with unapologetic emotion in his first foray into young-adult literature.įourteen-year-old Junior is a cartoonist and bookworm with a violent but protective best friend Rowdy.
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