

There was a lot that I loved about this- strong family relationships, friendship, many charming animal side characters, and two individuals trying to figure out how their identities fit into the worlds they inhabit.

Their stories run parallel until they ultimately intersect. Meanwhile Oli is a cottonmouth snake who can shapeshift, seeking his place in the world. Nina is a Lipan Apache teen girl trying to translate a story she recorded from her great-grandmother in her native language. While there is an overarching plot, a lot of it is made up of a series of vignettes set in the parallel world of the animal people. Both draw on Lipan Apache culture and mythology, but the structure and type of story here is quite different. You should know that A Snake Falls to Earth is a very different book from Elatsoe.
