https://anovelhaul.wordpress.com/2017/08/10/notyourprincess-ed-by-lisa-charleyboy-and-mary-beth-leatherdale/

Fantastic collection of prose, poetry, and art from indigenous female creators. Important voices and stories.

A beautiful book full of art, poetry, quotes and snippets of autobiography from a wide range of native women (teens through adults; Americans and Canadians; doctors, lawyers, athletes, artists, students, mothers, daughters, and on and on), speaking up about what it really means to be a native woman and speaking out against stereotypes, cultural appropriation, violence, abuse, and the generational impact of colonialism and oppression.

I read this in e-book format and unfortunately the formatting was off in quite a few places, so paintings and photographs were broken into pieces and some text was all out of whack. Based on that, I'd recommend picking up a physical copy of the book in order to get the full impact of the art and words.

Disclaimer: A free copy of this book was received through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a #ownvoices book and I’ve talked before about how important these books are, but it doesn’t mean that every single one of them is a winner. This book showcases stories, poems and art by indigenous women about being Native American in today’s society. I really wanted this one to be, and it’s a shame that it just wasn’t.

This book isn’t well curated and it’s not a significant length. Now I don’t mean that it’s short, I mean they have enough contributors that 25% of the book (according to my Kindle) is just contributor bios and acknowledgements while the other 75% is content. That’s not a good ratio and even THAT is generous considering much of the content was a single page image across several pages because of typesetting errors that will be fixed in the proper release, so the content section will likely be shorter.

I cannot stress enough that this review is based on an ARC that was bordering on unreadable. I’m positive that it will be better formatted upon release and perhaps there are whole poems that got lost in the formatting. As it stands, this book needs far more artwork, poems and stories to feel substantial. Even formatted properly though this book is so art heavy I would avoid purchasing a copy for an e-reader as you lose a lot of the intended content when everything is black and white.

I want to hear the voices of these women. I am a forgettable percentage Native American, but I had relatives on the reserve. My mother’s grandparents who raised her made us moccasins that were hand beaded and doll clothes out of rabbit fur. These stories are important to me, and they deserve more.

The stories I read were interesting, especially the personal tales. The poetry wasn’t much to my taste, I would have preferred if the book focused on letting indigenous women tell their stories. Speak about their struggles growing up and figuring out their identity. Although perhaps when the book is formatted the poems will be more heartfelt.

Overall I just didn’t feel like there was much substance here, a few really strong stories with more content about the contributors than actual content.

I saw #NotYourPrincess on NetGalley and knew I had to read it.

Whether looking back to a troubled past or welcoming a hopeful future, the powerful voices of Indigenous women across North America resound in this book. In the same style as the best-selling Dreaming in Indian, #NotYourPrincess presents an eclectic collection of poems, essays, interviews, and art that combine to express the experience of being a Native woman. Stories of abuse, humiliation, and stereotyping are countered by the voices of passionate women making themselves heard and demanding change. Sometimes angry, often reflective, but always strong, the women in this book will give teen readers insight into the lives of women who, for so long, have been virtually invisible.

I don’t know where to begin with this review. It’s a short book but it’s a powerful read for those of us who have been overlooked in society and even in marginalized movements. #NOTYOURPRINCESS explores what it means to be a Native woman and looks at the experiences of several woman through poetry, art, comics, and stories.

There were 2 stories and 1 comic that really stuck with me with I was reading this. The first was BLANKETS OF SHAME by Maria Campbell which talks about how we all wear blankets of shame. The story starts with Maria talking about how her Cheechum told her that the government stripped Natives of everything that made them living souls and then gave them blankets to hide their shame and we still carry those blankets of shame through intergenerational trauma.

INVISIBLE INDIANS by Shelby Lisk explores what it’s like when Native people don’t meet the expectations of how white people view us and how they try to strip away our identities in order to make themselves feel superior.

THE TALE OF TWO WINONAS by Winona Linn is a comic that deals with tragedy porn, the weight of names, and heroes.

I loved every piece of this book and I cannot wait to have a finished copy in my hands. You can preorder here.

To me this, this collection of poetry and prose is important. It gives voices to Indigenous women, tells their stories and empowers their sisters to embrace themselves and who they are. To me, this collection that contains experiences I haven’t felt myself and experiences I deal with as well into words. The poems and stories that did this was stories talking about how they weren’t raised with their heritage and have to learn it on their own or families that whitewashed themselves to hide who they are, much like my own family has. These pieces hit hard while reading them, leaving me wanting to tell my own story instead of biting it back in fear of ‘not fitting’ the expected mold.

To me, I found these pieces well done. However, about half way through this collection, the formatting sort of gave out on me. Sentences ran into other sentences, not ending but cut off suddenly. Some poems make use of different colored fonts while others have the same idea, but the formatting made it repeat the sentence above when it wasn’t meant to. As it was, the white colored fonts can’t be seen well on kindles, leaving your eyes hurting trying to read it. A more common issue with ebooks on kindles is art work getting cut to pieces so it’s not a full images but small pieces. This was an issue through this arc as well. I felt like the formatting issues did effect my impression simply because half of the pieces I couldn’t understand because I had to try and repiece the pieces together again, leaving me a little frustrated. Hopefully, this can be fixed before this goes out into ebook formats.

Do I recommend this? Yes. Wait to get it in physical form or for the publishers say that formatting has been fixed for ebooks if you get it. I find it a really important read and one that touched my soul and my own experience of trying to find my way of my heritage and understand what that means for the woman I am, as a Metis, who’s family that has been rewritting who they are to hide this side. I feel like this book is important to both Indigenous women and women who want to better understand the struggle.

I really wanted to love this, because when I realized it was a compilation of artwork and stories from native American women, I was like, "Yeah, sign me up!" I always am looking for more education, and I strongly believe that there's no better place to be educated than through the experiences of the marginalized peoples who are actually going through these situations.

That said, this book is just really poorly compiled. The formatting is poor, and by the time I finished my ARC of it, I had only actually read 4-5 stories and a couple of very short poems, as well as maybe half a dozen quotes. The majority of the book was just graphic designs (not the art of the women - I mean literally just random graphic designs) and blank spaces.

If the editors ever decided to revisit this idea and add a lot more stories and artwork to it, I think it would be a 5-star read and I'd be the first one to pick up a hard copy to keep on my shelf, but as it is, this wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Annick Press for granting me this ARC! All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This anthology from Indigenous women across North America is a revelation of their brilliant resilience in the face of white supremacist colonialist violence, so all readers should savour their words!

The words, photos and art in this collection were powerful and beautiful. It was a very quick read and I wish there was even more to experience. My major issue here was the formatting. I understand that it was an eARC, but it was so poorly formatted that it was distracting and sometimes downright confusing. Lines of text clearly where they didn't belong. Artwork cut into pages or breaking up the text around it. It's a bummer that it was such a mess, hopefully the physical book will get it right. The stories here deserve a better presentation.