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4.22 AVERAGE
4.22 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5 stars
The Strangers doesn't let up. Despite its seriously dark themes, it is not without hope and light. Katherena Vermette has done it again, given us a story of cherished characters who you want to hug tight and protect.
This story shows how disconnect from culture and family really harms people. Colonization harms Indigenous people in countless ways from first contact to present day. It starts at break-neck speed and never really lets up. I was on the edge of my seat for these women and girls. Feeling stressed for their predicaments. I found myself reading through Margaret's chapters just to return to Phoenix and Cedar (and Elsie) and make sure they were okay. Cedar-Sage I held particularly close to my heart. Phoenix too. Margaret's chapters are essential for the story though, to understand how the Strangers became strangers to one another. Became so disconnected and isolated from familial love and comfort. Will this cycle continue? The way this ended was so hopeful yet sad. We don't get the resolution we're hoping for for some of these characters while others are bathed in excitement and future hopes! I felt strongly like we needed another sequel, especially to finish the daughters' stories. I'm really hoping that we'll get closure for Phoenix's story.
If you read The Break this is an unmissable sequel. It takes that story and expands it inward and outward. It evolves and changes how we think of certain characters. It gives humanity to those we were villainizing. Another treasure from Katherena Vermette.
content warnings for: foster care, incarceration, child birth scenes, children/parent separation, addiction, descriptions of drug use, micro-aggressions, racism, mention of abortions, child death, child abuse, scenes in hospitals.
The Strangers doesn't let up. Despite its seriously dark themes, it is not without hope and light. Katherena Vermette has done it again, given us a story of cherished characters who you want to hug tight and protect.
This story shows how disconnect from culture and family really harms people. Colonization harms Indigenous people in countless ways from first contact to present day. It starts at break-neck speed and never really lets up. I was on the edge of my seat for these women and girls. Feeling stressed for their predicaments. I found myself reading through Margaret's chapters just to return to Phoenix and Cedar (and Elsie) and make sure they were okay. Cedar-Sage I held particularly close to my heart. Phoenix too. Margaret's chapters are essential for the story though, to understand how the Strangers became strangers to one another. Became so disconnected and isolated from familial love and comfort. Will this cycle continue? The way this ended was so hopeful yet sad. We don't get the resolution we're hoping for for some of these characters while others are bathed in excitement and future hopes! I felt strongly like we needed another sequel, especially to finish the daughters' stories. I'm really hoping that we'll get closure for Phoenix's story.
If you read The Break this is an unmissable sequel. It takes that story and expands it inward and outward. It evolves and changes how we think of certain characters. It gives humanity to those we were villainizing. Another treasure from Katherena Vermette.
content warnings for: foster care, incarceration, child birth scenes, children/parent separation, addiction, descriptions of drug use, micro-aggressions, racism, mention of abortions, child death, child abuse, scenes in hospitals.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book had such a crazy build up and then just RIPPED my heartstrings out 🥺 super good read! But it WILL make you cry 😿
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Several weeks after finishing this book, I still think about it.
The Strangers is a really powerful and emotional companion novel to The Break, following four women and their POVs of the The Stranger family: two sisters and their mother in modern day, and their Grandmother through her life.
The Storykeepers podcast covers the themes and discussion much better than I (and I highly recommend checking out that episode specifically and the podcast generally. But Vermette spends a lot of time developing and exploring themes of memory and family history (particularly on how traditions can be lost through time, trauma, and grief), addiction and the impact it has on the substance user and their loved ones, and insidious, ongoing effects of colonialism and racism on Indigenous communities - specifically Métis women. Men are acknowledged to have their own struggles but are really not the focus nor given much grace due to their role in perpetuating intersectional gender-based violence.
I adored the characters and felt so strongly for their situations. I was rooting for each and every one of them, even when they let themselves down or others disappointed them. Margaret in particular reminded me of a lot of women of that era, including my own family members. Constrained by societal roles and expectations, poverty, and choices partially outside of their control, and embittered by those experiences. Elsie, to me, would have been someone much stronger if she'd grown up in a different situation - and I felt my heart breaking every time she relapsed, even though I was also frequently frustrated by her decisions and behaviour. Phoenix broke my heart from the first pages. Having been introduced to her in The Break, I knew what she was capable of, but she was failed by people from the start and was never given the chance to heal (except by Ben, who tried his hardest to share teachings/medicine with her). I think her story's resolution was the hardest to bear because she couldn't let go of the anger that had festered in her from her trauma. Cedar Sage, I think, represented the hope of the future. Given a name (and names mean a lot in this story) was that indicative of her heritage, and eventually reunited with her father (and her Native-obsessed white stepmother) in her teen years, she demonstrates the possibility of healing from intergenerational trauma and poverty, and breaking the cycle. And that last scene where she meets a character from The Break was *so* well done.
You don't have to have read The Break necessarily, but I highly recommend it because it gives a lot of context to this story and some of the characters' histories. Plus it's just damn good.
Overall, a fantastic, unflinching, and beautifully written novel.
CW: references to rape and sexual assault and molestation, substance use and addiction, abortion, pregnancy complications and traumatic births, prison system, violence, intergenerational trauma and grief, foster system, depression and PTSD, racism and colonialism.
The Strangers is a really powerful and emotional companion novel to The Break, following four women and their POVs of the The Stranger family: two sisters and their mother in modern day, and their Grandmother through her life.
The Storykeepers podcast covers the themes and discussion much better than I (and I highly recommend checking out that episode specifically and the podcast generally. But Vermette spends a lot of time developing and exploring themes of memory and family history (particularly on how traditions can be lost through time, trauma, and grief), addiction and the impact it has on the substance user and their loved ones, and insidious, ongoing effects of colonialism and racism on Indigenous communities - specifically Métis women. Men are acknowledged to have their own struggles but are really not the focus nor given much grace due to their role in perpetuating intersectional gender-based violence.
I adored the characters and felt so strongly for their situations. I was rooting for each and every one of them, even when they let themselves down or others disappointed them. Margaret in particular reminded me of a lot of women of that era, including my own family members. Constrained by societal roles and expectations, poverty, and choices partially outside of their control, and embittered by those experiences. Elsie, to me, would have been someone much stronger if she'd grown up in a different situation - and I felt my heart breaking every time she relapsed, even though I was also frequently frustrated by her decisions and behaviour. Phoenix broke my heart from the first pages. Having been introduced to her in The Break, I knew what she was capable of, but she was failed by people from the start and was never given the chance to heal (except by Ben, who tried his hardest to share teachings/medicine with her). I think her story's resolution was the hardest to bear because she couldn't let go of the anger that had festered in her from her trauma. Cedar Sage, I think, represented the hope of the future. Given a name (and names mean a lot in this story) was that indicative of her heritage, and eventually reunited with her father (and her Native-obsessed white stepmother) in her teen years, she demonstrates the possibility of healing from intergenerational trauma and poverty, and breaking the cycle. And that last scene where she meets a character from The Break was *so* well done.
You don't have to have read The Break necessarily, but I highly recommend it because it gives a lot of context to this story and some of the characters' histories. Plus it's just damn good.
Overall, a fantastic, unflinching, and beautifully written novel.
CW: references to rape and sexual assault and molestation, substance use and addiction, abortion, pregnancy complications and traumatic births, prison system, violence, intergenerational trauma and grief, foster system, depression and PTSD, racism and colonialism.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Drug use, Fatphobia
Minor: Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
medium-paced