What do readers think of The Spirit Keeper by K. B. Laugheed? Write your own review.

I enjoyed this book. It is somewhat of a fantasy and there is nothing wrong with that. It is fun to get away to another era. Katie did not have a happy home life, being the thirteenth child of a poor Irish family. She felt being taken by the two
Indians could be no worse. I liked reading about their travels across western America and the people they met along the way. I would recommend this book.

I seldom read historical fiction from this place and time period so was looking forward to a good adventure story with interesting details. I was disappointed somewhat. While it certainly tells about a great adventure for Katie, Syawa, and Hector I felt the characters were not wholly believable and the physiological interpretation of their feelings and thoughts was overdone. The story seemed to move rather slowly. The plot was good when the story progressed and there were some good twists and surprises. The book would be good for teenage girls because of the love story. Although the book is well researched anyone interested in details and history of this period would do better to find something else.

This book, I think, was written for younger readers, youth readers, even though it did have some sex in it. It was just too much of a fairy tale to be believable. The heroine, Katie OToole, was just that - a HEROINE! In capital letters! Katie did have many doubts (which were outlined for us over and over and over) about her place in life and her abilities, but she always managed to triumph in every situation. This is where the author lost me and maybe it's just me. I lose interest in characters that aren't flawed. Give me a good old alcoholic, a drug addict, a gambler, a self-centered clod and I can work with that. If the character is PERFECT and can practically raise the dead, I smell "made-up" and feel it's written for children. Having said that, the story was interesting and probably would make good reading for teens. Very young teens.

A good book is one in which I become so engrossed I can't wait to get back to it. Not this one. The author couldn't make me care about the characters. I found the book slow and repetitive; before the halfway point I was ready for it to end.
I was bothered throughout by the implausibility of their ways of communicating. Many early "conversations" between Katie and her companions were far too complex to have been communicated in gestures alone. Then after only 4-5 months, Katie is somehow able to speak the Indian language fluently.
The copyright page shows the Library of Congress categorized this book under the subject heading "Teen Age Girls: fiction". Perhaps this novel would appeal to a much younger audience, but I could not recommend it.