Rating: 
Summary: Also confused by writing style, but powerful
Review: Similar to some of the earlier reviewers, I found the writing style to be somewhat confusing (I think this is the first book without dialog that I have ever read). Still it is a powerful story, albeit one of the few cases where the movie works better than the book. The book treats Beth much less sympathetically at the beginning, and as more of a heroine toward the end; the movie has her as a strongpoint throughout. Why the film was moved from Rotorua to Auckland, and why some of the MAJOR plot points were altered so much, I don't know, but, in short, kudos to the scriptwriter, who took a powerful story from Duff and made it even more powerful. So, I give the movie six stars (on a five star scale) and the book three.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting and thought-provoking.
Review: The style of writing is a little difficult in the beginning but anyone who sticks with it for a dozen pages or so will find it becomes easier to comprehend and the resulting insight into the minds of the characters is well worth the effort. Jake and Beth will make you angry and make you cry. Your heart will break for Grace. I became acquainted with Mr. Duff's works four years ago after a visit to New Zealand when I saw the movie based on this book. I then saw the just-released sequel "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" while in Australia the summer of 1999. Jake Heke and his family kept returning to my mind over and over (The compelling performance of Temuera Morrison undoubtedly had something to do with this.) I read both books, thinking that would help bring some closure to my fascination with the subject. I now understand the characters, the country and the social situation much better but find I am still haunted by this story of a man's journey to maturity. Jake isn't a hero in the classical sense but there is enlightenment in his journey and hope in the end. The strengthening Beth experiences by returning to her cultural roots holds a lesson for all of us and perhaps Americans most of all. Anyone who is interested in the problems of integrating cultures and the long-term effects of European colonialism on indigenous peoples should read this novel for its insight into the psyche of a disinherited, disenfranchised people.
Rating: 
Summary: A Truely Gifted Writer
Review: This book is possible one of the best books I have ever read. The characters are deep and meaningful and the tension and drama grips you . This book is a must read for all New Zealanders and for people abroad. Alan Duff should be commended by the people of New Zealand for the talent which he displays in this book. The movie was good but the book is better. Alan Duff - A MASTER PENSMEN!!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read
Review: This book is quite possibly the best book I have ever read in my life. Alan Duff's understanding of the Maori people (possibly from the fact he is Maori himself) is quite phenomenal. His ability to portray all the characters, especially Beth Heke, with such life and passion is just amazing. I really felt I WAS there in the government house where they lived, instead of thousands of miles away. READ IT! You will not regret it! See the movie also.
Rating:
Summary: How much misery can you handle?
Review: This is not a pretty book. Beth and Jake Heke and their six children, along with numerous other Maori families, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. As the Hekes deal with poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, incest, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, the reader vicariously experiences their bleak and hopeless lives.Duff, part Maori himself, does not mince words here, recreating in bold, often raw, language the violence of their lives. Pathetically, and most affecting to the reader, the children, forced to "grow up early," accept these horrors as "normal" and try to survive any way they can, seeking even a small ray of hope for the future. Some do not succeed. This look at almost unbearable human misery leaves the reader disturbed and angry-as the author, no doubt, intended-and grateful for the ray of hope that finally emerges at the end. The book may be fiction, but it's a seething indictment of a real society.
Rating:
Summary: How much misery can you handle?
Review: This is not a pretty book. Beth and Jake Heke and their six children, along with numerous other Maori families, live in an urban ghetto of government-supported housing, isolated from the rest of society and isolated, too, from their old culture, which once gave pride and a sense of identity to Maori families. As the Hekes deal with poverty, drugs, alcoholism, unemployment, gang warfare, rape, incest, physical and mental abuse, suicide, and a host of other horrific family problems, the reader vicariously experiences their bleak and hopeless lives. Duff, part Maori himself, does not mince words here, recreating in bold, often raw, language the violence of their lives. Pathetically, and most affecting to the reader, the children, forced to "grow up early," accept these horrors as "normal" and try to survive any way they can, seeking even a small ray of hope for the future. Some do not succeed. This look at almost unbearable human misery leaves the reader disturbed and angry-as the author, no doubt, intended-and grateful for the ray of hope that finally emerges at the end. The book may be fiction, but it's a seething indictment of a real society.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a complimentary review
Review: To be fair I should point out my personal bias at the onset. I don't like Mr Duff's writing. I find his fiction clumsy and transparent, and his non-fiction to be mostly fictional, clumsy and transparent. I read "Once Were Warriors" anyway, partly because I loved the film and partly to see how Mr Duff had managed to write such a good story.
He hadn't. In between the book and the movie someone obviously stepped in and did an excellent job on converting yet another "get a job" diatribe into a stunning story about urban Maori life. In the process they moved the Heke's from Rotorua (Two Lakes - love that!) to Auckland and changed Jake from the daughter-raping, totally unlikable thug of the book into someone slightly likeable whom Temuera Morrison would be willing to play (ooh, that may be harsh on Mr Morrison, sorry).
"Once Were Warriors" reads much like Mr Duff's (allegedly non-fictional) book "Maori, the Crisis and the Challenge" - he sets up a fictional situation and then he uses that to repeatedly drive in his opinions about the jobless, the social welfare state, land rights, etc.
There is also a charming mistake near the end when the Te Arawa chief Te Tupaea is talking to the assembled masses about history. Mr Duff seems to like slipping these deliberate inaccuracies into his books just to make sure people are paying attention. Ironically enough this one comes half way through a lecture from Te Tupaea/Alan Duff on how NZers don't learn their own history:
Te Tupaea's sequence of events goes something like: the Maori fought the Pakeha, then set up their own King (the Waikato-centred Kingitanga movement), then everybody signed the treaty of Waitangi.
In fact the treaty was signed in 1840, then the first King was elected in 1858, then the bulk of the wars were fought from 1860 to 1872.
Maybe Mr Duff's "fighting" refers to the first war in Northland from 1845 to 1846 but the timeline is still pretty inventive, and besides that conflict only involved the NgaPuhi, not Te Arawa (in fact from the mid 1850s the Te Arawa supported and fought with the British, that's why they were awarded so much of Ngati Awa's land in the post-war confiscations - let's be generous though and assume that Te Tupaea and his entire audience were from the couple of Te Arawa hapu who fought with the King movement).
On the whole a quaint and amusing example of muddled history. A tad dangerous though, readers not aware of Mr Duff's liking for these factual pranks could actually take him seriously and he himself could contribute to the very lack of historical knowledge he is complaining about.
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