Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Mitt namn är Firekeeper by Angeline Boulley

116 reviews

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Sometimes when I read a book I have a super unpopular opinion on, I have to wonder if either I or everyone else got a bugged copy of some kind (or if I'm just that much of a hater). Because no matter how hard I try, I just really, genuinely cannot understand the average/majority rating of this book?

The writing ranges from dry to pointedly (in other words, unnaturally) quotable, and the dialogue is somehow even more stilted and unrealistically grammatically flawless than the narration. A few spoken lines toward the end literally go on uninterrupted and with no stuttering or backtracking for 100+ words; virtually no one, let alone who's suffered recent repeated physical trauma, is that eloquent. Information is revealed in stilted blocks and repeated ten times over. I don't think any teenager -- or person at all -- in the history of cell phones has ever texted like the teenagers in this book are written as doing.

In terms of substance, there's a lot left to be desired as well. All of the individual narrative threads -- or at least most of them -- would make interesting stories, but here they're all kind of crammed into one unbalanced mess. Is the central plot supposed to be Daunis's complex relationship with her family members and community? Her desire to pursue a career in medicine/science and unite traditional and more modern "scientific" practices? Her recovering from and learning about the factors leading up to her best friend's sudden, tragic death? Her role as an undercover informant in an FBI investigation involving meth and her community (as much suspension of disbelief as that requires)? Her and Jamie's relationship? A general critical overview of the treatment of Indigenous women in American and Canadian society? It's never really decided, and so we jump awkwardly from one to the other without more natural transitions or better multitasking, leading to really overall odd pacing.

The general emotional pacing never quite hits either. A significant medical detail about the protagonist is made explicit for the first time 70% in and never serves any real relevance (and is outright contradicted or ignored at other times). Major traumatic events like the murder of Daunis's best friend and

her being raped by a friend's father

are brushed off like minor hindrances -- there's no "right" way to react to trauma, but it feels so strange for the plot to just trudge on with no in-depth reflection, as though these things (particularly the latter) have been carelessly thrown in just to add to Daunis's hardships.

The characters -- including, perhaps especially Daunis -- lack depth, whittled down to one trait (not even one that is shown, but told... multiple times). The supporting cast especially kind of blends together as a result of that weird pacing and unrealistic, stilted dialogue. I couldn't get a real sense of any of their motivations, so the culprit reveal and relationships all feel more than lackluster. In that regard, the romance is particularly egregious, even putting aside the core issues with

a relationship between a 22-year-old government agent (as much questionable as that is in and of itself) and an 18-year-old college student he's directly supervising in an investigation

.

Overall, quite disappointing execution of multiple interesting premises, and I remain bewildered by the overwhelmingly positive response. Perhaps it was a great book for many others, but nothing about it ended up clicking or sitting well with me.

(Also, urine, even your own, is not actually sterile! Please do not use it as a substitute for hydrogen peroxide. I know this is set in 2004 -- as little as there is to solidly ground it there -- and a lot of people believe that myth even today, but it just feels... irresponsible to include in a book like this, especially framed as an objective valuable fact.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Sexism, Violence, Addiction, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Misogyny, Murder, and Racism

Moderate: Death of parent, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Grief, Medical content, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Infidelity, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Sexual content, Alcoholism, Cultural appropriation, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Car accident, and Child abuse

redefiningrachel's review against another edition

emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Drug use, Grief, Murder, Sexual violence, and Rape

Moderate: Abandonment, Death of parent, Car accident, Colonisation, Blood, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Classism, and Medical content

Minor: Vomit and Domestic abuse

miniingrid's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Car accident, Colonisation, Infidelity, Addiction, Violence, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Alcohol, Grief, Medical content, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, Rape, Racism, and Suicide

Minor: Torture and Slavery

bookish_den's review against another edition

emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

❤️‍🔥 What I liked:

•Daunis character felt very real, I can see her existing out there with how complex she was written.

•How craftily the different plots intertwined: the mystery, the romance, the community, Angeline builds them step by step so you don’t notice how much of them is driving the story and its hard to compartmentalize and define what was at its core, I dare to say the community was. 

•The use of the language was so interesting, so intentional, I loved how much authenticity it added to the story.

•The audiobook was absolutely fantastic! Isabella Star LaBlanc did an outstanding job in it.

•Probably one of the most gorgeous covers ive ever seen

❤️‍🩹 What I wasn’t a fan of:

•Daunis character if real, felt very “not like other girls” to a point it got annoying

•Im mad at the ending, it was very open and I understood why, but im still mad at the characters for the choices they made and the ones that were made for them. I know there is a sequel set years after, im just blaming this one on me and my own ingenuity, life is imperfect and unjust, I just hated to be reminded of it. On a more objective analysis I truly feel it left many loose ends that could have been explained.

•I honestly think we could have done it without the romance subplot cause it ended up being unsatisfying and I hate that it is the main thing im left thinking of after so much more important plots happened 😩

•Some very heavy topics were handled almost casually and the grief could have been more explored, in the same way some other topics could have been cut back a bit, at times it felt dense.

🎁 Wrapping things up:

This book wrecked me, it struggled to pull me in for a long time but the emotional gut punch it packs in the last 150 pages left me breathless. 

The emotional attachment I had to the characters sneaked up on me, I didn’t really felt it until an awful concoction of sadness, impotence, dissatisfaction and disappointment had me ugly crying by the end, I was listening to the audiobook and had to stop and switch to the ebook for the last chapters cause it was too raw to hear her voice for what was left. 

Full of cultural richness, from beliefs to traditions and the inner workings of the community, it manages to immerse you into the native american culture as a whole and the Anishinaabe culture in particular 

In my opinion a masterpiece of a book I’ll be thinking about and probably still mad at for a long time. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Death, Drug use, and Rape

Minor: Kidnapping, Car accident, Death of parent, Gun violence, Medical content, and Grief

purplepenning's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Gun violence, Murder, and Suicide

Moderate: Vomit, Abandonment, Alcohol, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, Death, Car accident, Colonisation, Medical content, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Violence, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

blakeandbooks's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Bullying, Addiction, Trafficking, Gun violence, Suicide, Confinement, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Racial slurs, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Colonisation, and Cursing

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Vomit, Alcohol, Car accident, Death of parent, Rape, Sexual assault, and Violence

Minor: Infidelity

jessthanthree's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Suicide, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Violence, Racism, Rape, Death, Medical trauma, Addiction, and Car accident

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Bullying, Infidelity, Stalking, Body shaming, Excrement, Torture, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Cultural appropriation, and Vomit

Minor: Trafficking, Fatphobia, and Pregnancy

skudiklier's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

I enjoyed this book on a lot of levels--the plot, the characters, the mystery, what I learned about Ojibwe culture and traditions--and definitely found it suspenseful and engaging. I wouldn't say the writing itself is my favorite (I felt like it did a lot of telling rather than showing), but it wasn't bad by any means and didn't distract from the story. I couldn't tell how it was going to end and I felt pretty satisfied with the ending

(especially that it didn't force a HEA for the romance when that would have been unhealthy)

. Overall I'd definitely recommend this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Rape, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Addiction, Death, Grief, Racism, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexism, Infidelity, Abandonment, Alcohol, Death of parent, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Suicide, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Fatphobia, Car accident, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Racial slurs, Torture, Sexual content, Cultural appropriation, Homophobia, Ableism, and Alcoholism

lovealwaysadi's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Violence, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Blood, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Addiction, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Sexism, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Classism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Cultural appropriation

kenzers8's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Addiction, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Blood, Death, Violence, Rape, Addiction, Car accident, Sexual assault, and Medical trauma

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Excrement, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Medical content, Mental illness, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Vomit