A review by youshouldreadthisif
Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius

dark emotional sad tense slow-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

 I actually bumped my rating up a smidge (from liked to really liked) about a wee after finishing it because of how strongly it has stuck with me. 

 

When first writing this review, I wrote that this book is a “layered” look at life within a tight knit Sámi community, but upon further reflection I think “tangled” is a more apt description of the snarled web of internal and external threats Laestadius probes throughout this novel. 

 

STOLEN is a book about a community in peril, told through a suspenseful coming-of-age lens. The novel unfurls slowly, bookended by a disturbing beginning and building inexorably to a deeply affecting end. Elsa, the narrator, grows from a child terrified into silence to a fierce, angry young woman motivated to push back against the apathy, neglect, and outright disdain her community faces. The specter of climate change haunts the story through a strong sense of place. STOLEN is both a revelatory novel about a culture I knew nothing about and also a story that is horrifyingly familiar. 

 

This novel feels to me like if Charlotte McConaghy’s ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES were written through an Indigenous lens (and also minus the romance subplot & mute sister).