Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
It’s been a hot minute since I read one of my girl Reese Witherspoon’s book club selections.
In case yall forgot, I LOVE her. I have said for years she would be my BFF if I knew her in real life… I just feel like we have SO many things in common and similar personality traits and I think we would hit it off INSTANTLY when we met.
(I say that in the LEAST possible creepy, stalker-ish way possible, okay? 🤣)
I even applied last year to be her online librarian for her publishing company Hello Sunshine…..which obviously didn’t work out for me 😥
I almost ALWAYS love the reads she selects for her official book club selections but for some reason I haven’t been paying much attention to them lately.
(NO CLUE why I have ignored my girl….my bad, friend! Totally not intentional just been a weird kinda head space)
Anyway, when I happened to scroll across this literary pick of hers on the Instagram not too long ago, I was super intrigued and knew I had to snap back into attention mode. This was a GREAT read to do that with!
Here is the official summary:
“Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team.
Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.
Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims.
Now, as the deceptions―and deaths―keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.”
What was fascinating to me about this book was that it was so so so many things wrapped into one.
It was a coming of age story, a romance, a mystery, a thriller, a dissection of culture, an education on history, tradition, and even science.
I learned so much about a few Native American tribes…the traditions, the histories, the obligations, the ways of life, the spiritual beliefs, the connections, the traumas, the triumphs, the love and the sadness.
There is TONS of education in this book mixed into the story. I highly highly recommend the audio version because the language of the Ojibwe tribe is used frequently…to hear the words pronounced the way they are intended to be pronounced is absolutely beautiful and honoring.
Side note: the narrator of the audiobook is Isabella Star LaBlanc, who is of Native American heritage just as the author of this book is. I looked her up to read more about her and found a fascinating article written about a role she played in the Shakespeare Theatre company in 2019. While it focuses on her role as the revised Tiger Lily in the show “Peter Pan and Wendy”, so much of what she speaks of is how she uses her artistic performances as a form of activism. Powerful woman and TALENTED woman right here, yall. Highly recommend reading this:
While I’m sharing interview links, yall KNOW I looked up this book’s author to read more about her as well. This interview gives a peek into her own background as well as why she wrote this book the way she did:
https://bookpage.com/interviews/26047-angeline-boulley-ya#.YS48-Y5KhPY
(It seems totally fitting that I am sharing research with yall in this book review, because there is TONS of research that happens by main character Daunis WITHIN the story too! Although her research is WAAAAY more scientific than mine!)
As I mentioned above, this book contains a whole lot of different things and the thriller aspect of the plot is a big one….there are so many twists and turns that keep you on the edge of your literary seat. Each page turn will keep you guessing who is doing what and what is REALLY going on until the very end.
TONS of education mixed into the story on Native cultures and different tribes, as well as some environmental science and chemistry too, which I greatly appreciated and valued.
BUT…
My ONLY critique is that there were times that it was glaringly obvious that the main purpose of long monologues from characters was to directly transmit information or history to the reader. Which is totally fine…. BUT this *is* a fictional narrative and a novel….not a textbook…and some things just didn’t smoothly fit into the dialogue or situations presented in the plotline.
It was almost like the author really wanted to include some history/information but wasn’t sure how to integrate it. It felt in these moments she was kinda like “Hmmm. I really want to address/include this important fact but not sure where it fits or how to bring it up organically with these characters/plot development. Let me just throw it in here as part of THIS conversation.”
That only happened a slim number of times though. It didn’t happen enough to mess with or distract from the story’s vibe at all…and even though it was kind of odd presentation, I still absorbed and learned as the author intended and for that I am an appreciative learner.
Lots of deep dives into complex issues that affect many Native American communities are included in this story.
The main character Daunis discusses her difficulties in being half white and half Ojibwe…her struggle to honor only one side or the other at what is deemed “appropriate” times. The hardships she has in fitting in one place or the other…her “light skin” privilege or exclusion, depending on the environment.
Generational trauma caused by the American government and it’s people and the damaging effects it has had and continues to have on Native communities is discussed repeatedly by MANY characters in the story.
The racism, bigotry, stereotypes, and abuse that Native communities have experienced and continue to experience in big and small ways is also discussed and examined. This had me personally doing an internal examination of my own thought processes and had me unravel some of my own unconscious biases against Native people and cultures.
Another piece of the story has to do with the devastation that addiction can cause to young people and their communities as a whole.
While there is much heartache and pain addressed in this book, there is also so much beauty, joy, connection and celebration as well.
This is a young adult book but it is one of those that truly does not read like one. It is totally appropriate for teen audiences but it really feels like a novel you’d find in the Adult Fiction section of your bookstore or library.
I really appreciate the way the author comes to a close on the story in the last few chapters too…it doesn’t feel forced or fake or unrealistic like so many YA novels do in their endings… it brings the proper amount of closure and finality in a way that does not seem too heavy or unresolved either like so many Adult novels can do in theirs.