Rose's Run

by Dawn Dumont

[brokentune]

In this particular year, Dahlia had already run three marathons, three half marathons, and four 10Ks — and it was only June. This was Rose’s second race, in her lifetime. (Fifth if you included races she ran in elementary school. She’d done okay in those — never last, just an innocuous second or third last, depending on whether one or both of the asthmatic Bower twins was in attendance.) She’d never had an athletic performance that resulted in someone taking her aside afterwards like the coach in Rocky and patting her on the shoulder: “Yuh got real talent, kid. But you’re still a bum.”

I don't even remember how I found this book but it's been lingering on my kindle for far too long. You know when you browse through your library and find titles that you really want to pick up and read but you don't want to squeeze them in between other books and rush them? This has been one of those books.

Yet, I had no idea what the book would be about. All I knew was that it was about Rose, a mother of two, who lives on a reservation in Saskatchewan and decides to take up running.

What I didn't know was how her decision to take up running came about, and when the book started off with Rose standing on the starting line of a 10k race without having had much training at all and showing Rose full of both self-doubt and determination to finish this race, I was intrigued.

This was a light read. Dumont has a warm and empathetic way of narrating Rose's story and that of the other characters on the "rez". She's funny, yet, gets across some of the issues faced by Rose's community.
There even was a romance element that I didn't mind reading about because it was quite quirky and fun, and that is really saying something.

I look forward to reading Dumont's other book Nobody Cries at Bingo, which has also been on the kindle for far too long already.