I read books like this, coming-of-age or bildungsroman, and think of what my own tale would have been - overcome by cable outages or lacking enough pocket change to complete a year's set of baseball cards. Something a bit too close to nothing to please Scout Finch, I think.

The Round House is a classic. It's Erdrich's To Kill a Mockingbird - modernized and shifted to a different cultural tableau (that still confronts a particular American failing.) It's rich and sympathetic and substantial. I loved Plague of Doves, years ago, but The Round House is the one that keeps Erdrich on reading lists 50 years from now.

(I predict that I will think on this for a couple of days and come back and drop it to 4 stars, but forget to modify anything else in the review.)