I couldn’t help but like Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter. It ticked some enormous, interest boxes for me, so even if it was just okay, I would have been engaged. But it was better than okay. It’s a good read and a well-done YA thriller (light on the thriller but heavy on the YA). I enjoyed it, stayed up late reading it, wondering what would happen to the respectful, strong (perhaps naïve) protagonist as the dangers mounted around her (and I was seeing it, but was she?). Set in an in-between place (half Ojibwe reservation and half non-res town, on the border of Michigan and Canada, one leg in tribal culture and one leg in modern Midwestern culture), the main character is also in between (the daughter of a Native man and a white woman, part of two distinct families, just graduated high school and readying for college, and even finds herself on both sides of the law), this is a book about identity and finding it even when you are in transition or without a clear-cut space.

Daunis has graduated high school and she’s supposed to be moving on from star of the local hockey team to pre-medical student at University of Michigan way down state. But her uncle has died and her mother isn’t doing well, which means Daunis is going to stay and go to community college with her best friend, Lily, at least for now. It’s not all bad: she can hang out with Lily, see more of her high school half-brother and her feisty aunt, continue learning from the Ojibwe elders, and maybe even consider applying for tribal membership, which is complicated for an abandoned daughter. But when a cute and kind out-of-towner shows up on the hockey team and Danis becomes his sponsor, she’s going to discover that all the pieces of her crumbling life are connected to what’s rotten in her community. And what’s rotten in her community has drawn the attention of the FBI.

When I bought my daughter Firekeeper’s Daughter off of a table of popular YA, I thought it was probably fantasy. The title? The look of the book? I don’t know exactly how I got to fantasy, but the title and cover do not give away the true nature of this book, which is thriller-crime YA with a cocoon of Midwestern and Ojibwe culture. I mean, even the synopsis that I just gave you doesn’t really hint at the structure of the book, which contains crime, drugs, the FBI, guns, abductions… somehow all of that sits under the YA coming-of-age story set in this half-tribal area in the far reaches of the USA/Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Modern life for Native Americans is more a feature. A teen struggling with life decisions and the terrible things that happen to her are more of a feature. But the draw of a YA thriller is why a kid might actually pick it up and read it. Somehow telling most of the plot would seem like a spoiler, but I guess just know that it starts out like any ol’ YA but it does get to the crime/thriller stuff and that’s where most of the actual plot and tension is built. Ya’ know, to keep the ol’ internal plot (in this case Daunis growing up and finding her place to belong) going.

Some of the more specific things I liked about this book: it feels almost historical in its exploration and revealing of a culture most of us probably aren’t super aware of; it is focused on family and community as opposed to romance; it is respectful of the older characters and even uses them to work together with the teen; it is thrilling, sure, but also charming and interesting and warm; it is authentic to all the cultures and times that it is holding; the characters are compelling and likeable; no one is demonized (ultimately (I didn’t take the “not like other girls reading” so literal or as far as some readers did)). The topics that really drew me in included Native American culture and history, family, America’s drug problems, small town life, teen coming-of-age, and Michigan (I was like fist-pumping the air with every familiar Michigan reference). I did think that the teen characters act way older than they are (which is common in YA and I often argue is aspirational), but this was especially true in relation to sex. Their handling of sexual situations (including in the flashbacks of the novel) were ridiculously mature. And when a rape went unreported, I was fuming—as much for the many young readers as the character. Yes, I understand that the character (and many people) had many reasons not to report it, but that went unexplored, unaddressed. Like it was a non-issue and I wanted to vomit and/or throw the book across the room. (Many reviewers have argued that there are way too many topics, subplots, characters, even pages in this book.) Except I loved this book. And I had to find out what happened. The twists did not surprise me—I saw them all coming. There are definitely some bumps in the narrative and some things about narrator Daunis that people might find off-putting (or about the romantic interest). Writing is overall clear and unobtrusive with occasional cutesy humor and lots of internal, teen dialogue. There is a magic realism/spiritualism thread that is dropped and also a reference to a cultural tradition that seems important, so that the reader is left hanging. Setting is the book’s strong point.

So yeah, I really liked it. It’s fairly typical YA, but I was drawn into the place and both the problems and charm of the setting. A recommend, if this is your kind of book. It has amazing reviews online. It’s heartfelt. Engaging. I was actually bawling at one point. In a good way.

TRIGGER WARNING: Lots of things, actually, including rape. Drugs and alcohol, sex, abduction, suicide, murder, violence, abuse.

This is Angeline Boulley’s novel debut. She is in her fifties and is a registered member of the Ojibwe tribe and is from Sault Ste. Marie (soo saint marie). She was the Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U. S. Department of Education. She published another novel last year, Warrior Girl Unearthed, which also has amazing reviews and takes place in the same world as Firekeeper’s Daughter ten years later and features Dauni’s niece, a heist, and more of the deep dive into small-town and tribal issues. Boulley’s website can be found HERE.

“When you love someone, but don’t like parts of them, it complicates your memories of them when they’re gone” (p205).

“Auntie told me once that a girl needs at least one grown man in her life who sees her worth as inherent” (p207).

“People say to think seven generations ahead when making big decisions, because our future ancestors—those yet to arrive, who will one day become the Elders—live with the choices we make today” (p237).

“Grief is a cruel and sneaky bastard. You love a person and then they’re gone. Past tense. You forget them for an hour, a day, a week. How is that even possible? It happens because memories are fickle; they can fade” (p241).

“The God I pray to is here with us, Daunis. With you, me, and our pancakes” (p288).

There is a limited TV series in the works with Michelle Obama’s production company and maybe Reese Witherspoon (who made the book a Reese’s YA Book Club choice) and is supposedly headed to Netflix. Since 2021. As always, fingers crossed.