Nacona, Wanderer, my brother, I wish the these white people would come west so we could raid them all the time. They have such wonderful things, and they're soft like newborn pups. I may spend ore time here in the east".

Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson

As someone with an interest in Native American History I liked reading this story about Cynthia Anne Parker. It made me angry though and not at Native Americans, at OUR government. I felt almost embarrassed on her behalf.

This was a really long book and there's alot of violence in it, you have been warned. I did have to skim over some parts of it. But the book taught me alot..which is what great books do. I looked up Cynthia's story after reading this book. Then I got mad all over again.

SPOILERS:

This is really just a comment but.. I wish her story had had a happier ending. It was painful.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to see the "trail of tears" which also made me outraged. I can remember, as a child, loving Native American History and wanting to live free as they did. This book really is superb and like many others have wondered I do not get why it has not been turned into a movie(although with Hollywood being involved, who knows how it would turn out?)

But this was a great story and my hat's off to the author as I read the story of how she came to write this as well. Highly recommended. ( )

Fictionalized telling of the life of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was captured by Comanches as a child and spent all her life among them until she and her young daughter were captured and sold back to her white family around the time the Civil War began, intermingled with the story of the wearing down and eventual penning up of a proud and free people.

I found this story very compelling -- compelling enough for me to persist through extremely grisly violence -- and the story felt well-researched and like stereotypes were applied with an even brush to all the groups. Westerns make me a bit hesitant because social expectations have changed so much since their heyday, but this one didn't feel dated at all. The depth of portrayal here is highly recommended. ( )

DNFing at the 50% point. I don't have a strong enough stomach for this book. I was warned that it was violent, and I thought I could handle it (I've read a Brief History of Seven Killings...twice, so I'm not exactly a lightweight). This was just too much. The writing style was also not that great. There was too much "First, she did this, and then she did this, and then she did this, followed by doing this and then she did some more." AHHH!!! I was not enjoying this book at all, and would much rather be reading something that I did.

Just finished Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson. I have read this book before...about 20 years ago. While I understood the book was based on the true story of the kidnap of Cynthia Parker at the age of nine by the Comanches and I did remember some of the story as I came to it but it in no way interfered with my enjoyment of this novel the second time around.

I read another book on the Comanches written by Mike Blakely titled Comanche Dawn. This is a great companion novel to Ride The Wind. Blakely's novel is about the beginning of the Comanche nation when they discovered horses and use them to dominate their enemies. This novel ends in the 1500's. Robson's novel starts in the 1800's when the Comanche is at their peak but the expansion of white settlers encroach on their territory and way of life.... the two books complement each other in my opinion

Both books give an incredible amount of detail of life as a Comanche. For me, though life as a Comanche was brutal and the tribes fought each other... this was their culture back then, a way of young men to gain status and the women could be just as brutal... this was their way of life and it is sad to see how treaty after treaty was broken, promises not kept and the use of starvation and disease by the whites was horrible.

I gave both books 5 stars... if I could give more, I would ( )

What a great read this book turned out to be! It's the historical fiction retelling of the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped at the age of nine by a Comanche war band who massacred her family’s settlement in Texas. She was adopted by the Comanche and lived with them for 24 years, eventually marrying a Comanche chieftain and having three children with him, including the last free Comanche chief Quanah Parker. When she was 34, she was finally "rescued" by the Texas Rangers and returned to her white family. She spent the remaining years of her life in lonely misery, refusing to adjust to life in white society. The author appears to have thoroughly researched the conflict between the Comanche tribe and the Texans. I appreciated the way she told both sides of the story and the way Cynthia Ann Parker (Naduah in Comanche) is portrayed. In reality she never told anyone about her life among the Comanche but based on the stories from her son, Quanah Parker, I would like to think that the author's version was how it happened.

I enjoyed this book very much but it is very difficult to read in places. It's often violent, very shocking reading, and is not for the faint of heart. Some of the atrocities were very difficult to read through especially the deaths of the children and babies. They die from disease and from the elements but many of them are brutally tortured and murdered.

This is a wonderfully written and readable book. The author does a great job of describing the culture and time period. In many ways it is a heartbreaking book that documents a time and way of life that is gone forever. I highly recommend this book. ( )