Another day, another Book of the Month review. This one I recently got as an add-on to the popular subscription box. I didn’t know anything about it going in other than it was a YA book about an indigenous tribe. I didn’t even know it was a thriller so, boy, was I surprised when things started to get intense.
Angeline Boulley is an Ojibwe tribe member who writes books set in her or a similar community. Before becoming a full-time author, she was very involved in improving the Indian education system. You can read more about her here.
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, published by Henry Holt & Co., is a young adult thriller following a summer and autumn with Daunis Fountaine, a biracial unenrolled tribal member. On the tail of her grief following a series of tragedies, Daunis is recruited by the FBI to investigate her fellow tribal members and try to see who might be responsible for lacing meth with hallucinogenic mushrooms and distributing them among the community, causing tragic young deaths.
Many of you know that I’m not a big fan of thrillers. I picked this book up because I didn’t know it was a thriller. However, I really enjoyed this book.
One of the best things about this novel I think was the representation of grief and responses from trauma. Daunis’ reactions to different traumatic events were believable. It wasn’t just a one and done event for her. She had flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, and other symptoms expected from someone experiencing something traumatic, and I thought it was represented really well.
Because I’m not indigenous, I don’t know that I can comment on the representation of the Ojibwe community here. But, I’ve seen other reviews say it was done well, and as the author is part of the community, it may be safe to say this was done well here. I feel like I learned a lot more about certain Native American traditions and prejudices against the Native American community from microaggressions all the way to a systemic level.
The plot was also compelling. In a way, I’m glad I didn’t know what it was about before, because I’m not sure I would pick up a thriller about the drug trade. But, I felt connected to the main character through her grief, felt compelled to read more with the cliffhanger chapter ending and plot twists, and wanted to try to keep up with the fast pace.
That being said, no book is perfect. Though I felt connected to the main character, there were moments I found Daunis a bit insufferable. One pitfall of YA protagonists is that they can often fall into the “not like other girls” stereotype in order to seem unique, and that’s exactly where Daunis fell. She talked a good game to her brother about how women deserved to be treated respectfully, but her internal thoughts belied another attitude. For just one example, she called the girls who dated her brother’s friends “anglerfish” and acted as if they were these parasitic partners with little personalities outside of who they were dating.
I also think the pacing was a bit off. The first two thirds of the book I would identify as medium to slow paced, piecing through Daunis’ grief and revelations. The last third of the book sped up by a lot, crazy events happening nearly out of nowhere like a jump scare. I understand the climax to end of a book being a bit faster, but the change in pace was so drastic it felt hard to keep up.
Overall, however, I did thoroughly enjoy this book and would recommend to most people, while encouraging them to be mindful of trigger and content warnings as there is a lot in this book–
TW/CW: Addiction, Racism, Death, Drug Use, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Abuse, Sexual Assault, Violence
I gave this book four stars. And apparently, it will be coming as an adaptation to Netflix, so keep an eye out!
Living For Literature 