Reviews with content warning for Dementia - Firekeeper's Daughter

Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

41 reviews

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Sometimes when I read a book I have a super unpopular opinion on, I have to wonder if either I or everyone else got a bugged copy of some kind (or if I'm just that much of a hater). Because no matter how hard I try, I just really, genuinely cannot understand the average/majority rating of this book?

The writing ranges from dry to pointedly (in other words, unnaturally) quotable, and the dialogue is somehow even more stilted and unrealistically grammatically flawless than the narration. A few spoken lines toward the end literally go on uninterrupted and with no stuttering or backtracking for 100+ words; virtually no one, let alone who's suffered recent repeated physical trauma, is that eloquent. Information is revealed in stilted blocks and repeated ten times over. I don't think any teenager -- or person at all -- in the history of cell phones has ever texted like the teenagers in this book are written as doing.

In terms of substance, there's a lot left to be desired as well. All of the individual narrative threads -- or at least most of them -- would make interesting stories, but here they're all kind of crammed into one unbalanced mess. Is the central plot supposed to be Daunis's complex relationship with her family members and community? Her desire to pursue a career in medicine/science and unite traditional and more modern "scientific" practices? Her recovering from and learning about the factors leading up to her best friend's sudden, tragic death? Her role as an undercover informant in an FBI investigation involving meth and her community (as much suspension of disbelief as that requires)? Her and Jamie's relationship? A general critical overview of the treatment of Indigenous women in American and Canadian society? It's never really decided, and so we jump awkwardly from one to the other without more natural transitions or better multitasking, leading to really overall odd pacing.

The general emotional pacing never quite hits either. A significant medical detail about the protagonist is made explicit for the first time 70% in and never serves any real relevance (and is outright contradicted or ignored at other times). Major traumatic events like the murder of Daunis's best friend and

her being raped by a friend's father

are brushed off like minor hindrances -- there's no "right" way to react to trauma, but it feels so strange for the plot to just trudge on with no in-depth reflection, as though these things (particularly the latter) have been carelessly thrown in just to add to Daunis's hardships.

The characters -- including, perhaps especially Daunis -- lack depth, whittled down to one trait (not even one that is shown, but told... multiple times). The supporting cast especially kind of blends together as a result of that weird pacing and unrealistic, stilted dialogue. I couldn't get a real sense of any of their motivations, so the culprit reveal and relationships all feel more than lackluster. In that regard, the romance is particularly egregious, even putting aside the core issues with

a relationship between a 22-year-old government agent (as much questionable as that is in and of itself) and an 18-year-old college student he's directly supervising in an investigation

.

Overall, quite disappointing execution of multiple interesting premises, and I remain bewildered by the overwhelmingly positive response. Perhaps it was a great book for many others, but nothing about it ended up clicking or sitting well with me.

(Also, urine, even your own, is not actually sterile! Please do not use it as a substitute for hydrogen peroxide. I know this is set in 2004 -- as little as there is to solidly ground it there -- and a lot of people believe that myth even today, but it just feels... irresponsible to include in a book like this, especially framed as an objective valuable fact.)

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charliebriggs96's review against another edition

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challenging informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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findleydunn's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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nefariousbee's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I think it's mostly me, I have to accept mysteries are just not for me. I can't tell you if the book is boring and predictable and the pacing doesn't make sense and the characters sometimes seem so out of character etc etc because that might have been me being done with the genre. at least partly, that is. it was easy to read tho, so there's that.
the biggest asset of this book for me was the huge part that played the MC's indigenous American heritage. absolutely loved that and I wish there were more stories with such deep and loving portrayal of an indigenous culture.

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emsim's review against another edition

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challenging emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Holy shit. This book was stunning. Heartbreaking. Healing.

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tigger89's review against another edition

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emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

There were a lot of things I really liked about this book, and a lot of things that I really didn't. I felt that the mystery was fairly obvious from early on, but I don't necessarily think that it was a bad thing. Even though I as the reader had a pretty good idea of who the culprit was, I still wanted to see Daunis work it out for herself. It fit nicely with the themes of deception present throughout the novel. What didn't work for me was the culprit's ultimate motivation, and how the character seemed to change like a switch had been flipped and now evil mode is activated.

The pacing in this book is weird, I'm gonna warn you. Again, I think that it worked, but if you're going into this expecting a fast-paced FBI thriller, you're not going to be happy. To give you an idea what I mean, it's about 85 pages(out of 494) before the incident that propels the plot forward even goes down. Now that's not to say that the early pages are wasted. To the contrary, they build the world and establish the relationships that truly make us care about Daunis and her community. They're very necessary to carry the rest of the book. But they're slow, and you're going to spend about 75% of your reading time on the first 25% of the book. The pace picks up as the story goes on though, with a final action sequence that I loved and a 40-ish page denouement, which I also loved, but I'm weird like that.

Something that I'm very conflicted about is how the early 2000s were represented. The time period feels very accurate to me in terms of character values and how they approach things. This, however, leads directly to my biggest beef with this book: the central romance is questionable at best and predatory at worst. An 18-22 age gap is already on the edge of being a bad idea. Throw in the power dynamics, and those red flags are waving so hard they're about to fly off the pole. However, this is looking at it from a 2021(the publication year) perspective. In the 00s, when the novel is set, this would have been seen as thrilling and romantic(source: I was there). I wasn't surprised at all to read in the author's note that Boulley started work on this idea back in the 00s. And yes, the relationship did have to be romantic in nature; a platonic relationship wouldn't have hit the same notes that were necessary to drive the plot and themes, and I say this as someone who's notorious for deeming romantic subplots unnecessary. I guess I'll chalk this one up as points for historical accuracy, and be thankful that the kids seem to be doing better these days.

Continuing in the theme of "things from the 00s I'd rather see left behind," I want to note that the only gay in this book had been buried even before the first page. Again, there's period accuracy in this, because it was a rough time to be out in high school so many students simply didn't, especially if there wasn't already an established gay-straight alliance. But this novel was published in 2021, and today's readers expect better. I can understand not wanting to dive into the issues, but don't bury the only gay and call it good, because it's not!

The last thing I was conflicted about was the representation of Ojibwe culture and values. Boulley shares a lot, which is a good thing, but at times it felt repetitive. Rather than merely showing something she would explain it, and rather than explaining it just the once she'd often explain it several times, as if to make sure the reader had understood. To end on a high note, one of my favorite things about this book was the elders, especially how the relationships seeded over the course of the story came back into play at the end. That was a good example of showing Daunis's devotion to the elders in her community with a minimum of telling us that it's important to her culture, and I wish the other aspects of Ojibwe culture had been explored in the same manner.

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therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

That got intense! I didn't read the description of this book before diving in, so everything that happened was a surprise. I really enjoyed this read, and loved the characters. I especially enjoyed getting to know Daunis and seeing how herany worlds connected and guided her through being an informant in her quest to take out the meth destroying her community.

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