One Thousand White Women is a historical fiction novel that's made it's way around my book club. The premise is actually quite interesting because it takes an extremely obscure piece of history and plays that old game of "what if?"
Supposedly, in the late 1800s, a Cheyenne chief approached the president requesting one thousand white women to assimilate into their tribes. This chief knew the importance of the Indians adjusting their communities to work well with white men. So, he came up with this fantastic idea. And the president essentially laughed in his face, in real life.
This book explores the "what if" of one thousand white women going to live with the Indians and helping them learn and adjust to the white man's ways. The book is written like a journal by one of the women who would have taken this journey, May Dodd.
This was a well written story, but I just never really connected with the main character. Sometimes I find it hard to connect with a female lead character that is written by a man. There were some instances in this book that I thought May Dodd's reactions to were a bit...unrealistic. However, I still enjoyed the book and gave it three out of five stars. Now, would I recommend this one? I'm on the fence about that...it's OK, but I'm not going to be running out and singing it's praises.
That is how I felt. Not a complete waste of my time but also not going on my favorites shelf.
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