As soon as I started reading this, I was already getting the vibe that it was going to be racially insensitive towards Native Americans. Unfortunately, I was correct. 
 
The first red flag was that the main character states that being 'the only white boys in a school for Indians' was one of the worst things he has ever been through. Not the circumstances that led to them being orphaned, not the horrible treatment in the school, but the fact that they were the only two white kids there. 
 
At one point he also says that one of the teachers at the school 'had always been kind' to him and his brother. He doesn't acknowledge why this may be, and doesn't seem aware of the racial prejudices every other kid at the school had to live with and why they were treated so much worse than the WHITE KIDS. 
 
He also at one point states that Native American traditional dress is 'shabby'.
 
Because this was a child narrator I held out some hope that the above insensitivity could be part of his character development, and that through the book the kid would recognise the error of his ways. However, having read some reviews, I have discovered that this does not happen at all, and that racial insensitivity and micro aggressions are a mainstay of the book. 
 
It is also crazy that a white author chose to write a book about two white characters set in a Native American Boarding School purely as a vessel for white misery. From what I can tell from reviews, and even in the short passage I read, Native American experiences are hardly ever mentioned, let alone explored in detail. The author is taking advantage of and exploiting real Native history to tell a white story, ew. 
 
Also, the main Native American character is mute?? Literally has no voice? Not a good look…
 
Besides all that, the writing isn't very good. It feels clunky and doesn't flow at all, even in the same paragraph. The descriptions aren't emotive and the characters are all very flat.
 
All in all, not something I want to waste my time on. Goodbye!