The movie vs the book

In “Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian” they lived near Spokan, and in “Smoke Signals” they also went to Spokan.  The location of the two stories matches up pretty well.  Also, Junior was nerdy.  Even in his comics he drew himself as a nerd with big glasses and he was tall and thin.  In the movie Tomas was very nerdy looking, with long braids and big glasses.  I think they match up because both characters are representing the same person.  Sherman Alexie, who wrote both stories, must have looked like that when he was younger.  Alexie threw some of him into the book and the movie by where he lived and what he really looked like.  Another thing that really matched up was the comics and the stories.  In the book Junior wrote comics, and in the movie Tomas told stories all the time.  The friend too, Victor, was the rebel type complete opposite of Tomas, and Victor had an abusive and drunk father.  In the book Junior was best friends with Rowdy, a kid with an abusive father and was completely opposite of Junior.

There were a lot of similarities, but there were also a lot of differences.  The biggest difference was Junior moved off the reservation when Tomas stayed where he was.  I think Alexie was taking both sides of the Indians options and showing what would happen in both.  Junior ended up losing his reservation friends because he was trying to move on with his life, where Tomas only became closer friends with Victor because he stayed on the reservation.  There are only two things an Indian can do, stay on the reservation, or leave it.  I think Alexie did a good job showing the two different sides.