ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Wow-wow-wow. Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter is a fantastic debut.
But if you only talk about it as a YA thriller, you’re missing half the book. That’s just the plot. Yes, Daunis is an 18-year old biracial Anishinaabe woman gets who pulled into an FBI investigation into the drug trade in her community and falls for the new guy on her brother’s hockey team. She’s a solid hockey player in her own right and a science nerd.
But within that story, Angeline Boulley’s debut paints a vivid picture of what it is to be a biracial Native American woman. With Daunis, we get a clear sense of how her Anishinaabe culture, traditions, and community ground her daily life; how she balances and code switches between her white and Nish families; and how she’s torn between heading to college, but knowing she has a responsibility to her family and community. As a biracial person, it’s incredibly relatable.
A fast-paced thriller and a thoughtful coming of age story, Firekeeper’s Daughter is a love letter to Anishinaabe traditions and the power of community. But in it, Boulley also lays bare the long-term impacts of colonization; racism and bigotry; politics within indigenous communities; the way the federal government’s actions have contributed to corruption and the meth epidemic, and relegated indigenous communities, especially their women, to second, even third-class citizen status.
FIrekeeper’s Daughter is powerful and candid with rich characters and a compelling case to unravel. I can’t wait to see Daunis brought to life on Netflix.
It’s YA, but it’s definitely for older teens.
CW: Sexual assault, gun violence, murder, grief, drug trafficking
Get Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley from The Ripped Bodice | Bookshop.org | IndieBound |Amazon|Apple Books
Firekeeper’s Daughter was one of my most anticipated YA reads. Check out the rest of the YA books on my Must Read list for the first half of 2021.
