Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - Firekeeper's Daughter

This book has me feeling conflicted. I normally hate books that do not pass the Aila test, but I couldn't hate Firekeeper's Daughter. There were several times I became very frustrated with this book because of the number of Native women who died and were assaulted, but for once it didn't feel like it was done for sh*ts and giggles. It did however slowdown my reading pace as I can only take so much of that at a time.

Would recommend that you read this at some point as well.

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stephs_cozycorner's review against another edition

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4.0

“𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨, 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙗𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙚. 𝙀𝙭𝙘𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛. 𝙂𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙛 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩."

Wow.

I can’t believe it has taken me so long to pick up this book. Kicking myself with regret for procrastinating with this one.

I really don’t think anything I say will do this book justice, nor is there anything I can say that probably hasn’t already been said.

I absolutely loved the MC Daunis Fontaine. She was one tough cookie. A very strong female character that is the narrator of the story.

This YA debut from author Angeline Boulley was written so beautifully. I love learning new things in the books I’m reading and Boulley really dives deep into the Native culture, the language and history.

It was a slow burn that really comes together in the end. There are some very hard topics, so please make note of the trigger warnings below.

And can I just add how stunning this cover is.

⚠️ CW: Drug abuse, murder, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, racism, suicide, gun violence, death of a parent, car accident.

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bookish_den's review against another edition

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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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