Reviews with content warning for Cannibalism - The Marrow Thieves

This book is so powerful. Very well done, hard to listen at times but all important because while set in the future, many of the experiences are based on reality or historic reality for indigenous Americans. Definitely recommend, if you're in a space for something that is heavy and strong.

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erebus53's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is an award winner, no doubt. A rag-tag family of survivors journey through the wilds of Canada, evading the ever-present threat of those who would capture them and harvest their biological material. This is a story that is more about what it is to be human, than the speculative science of the future. Like many survivalist stories parts of it feel like (as one character puts it) "post-apocalyptic boy scouts" but this story is different from others in that the survivors are Indigenous North Americans, who are also trying to remember and rediscover how to live off the land, feeling the grievous loss of their language and their customs to the oppressive colonists.

spoiler alert.. ok not a spoiler at all; there are no zombies.

As the characters get to know each other and themselves better, it becomes clear that they have all suffered horrible trauma. The description of the physical sensations of trauma is real and visceral. This is the first time I have ever heard someone describe grief as living in the gut and in the backs of the knees. I have to agree (though I would say inside the knuckles also).

Although the teenagers in the group are scarred and damaged, they do have one thing that modern teens often don't and that is duty, and a feeling that they are desperately needed for the survival of their group. They have to look after the young and elderly, learn their languages to share them with future generations, and mind what the outcome of their "romances" might be. They are trained to move silently, to hunt and to track so that they don't go hungry.

Some parts of the book are magical, and based in the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous peoples. At no point is the book completely spelled out, or the rumours about the Schools where the people are detained, ever explained specifically, but I'm not upset by that. The ending is still satisfying, and the interpersonal drama is really what sells the whole experience.

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leahkarge's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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? N/A

4.0

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booksthatburn's review

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challenging dark 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? It's complicated

5.0

THE MARROW THIEVES speculates that, given the opportunity and incentive, settlers would do what they’ve always done and steal the very dreams from the bones of Indigenous people in a last, desperate attempt to save themselves. And it won’t work. It’s not dystopian, nor apocalyptic, but five-minutes-in-the-future speculative fiction because the necessary backstory is the real history that’s already happened. The “generic dystopia” version would include a factory tour and a lot more gore, rather than this (much better) story of a community trying to stay together. It’s wholly uninterested in gazing at the machinery of pain, but is focused on community, memory, and surviving long enough to have a chance at thriving.

The term "found family" is both accurate and inadequate for the character relationships. They're the remnants of a much larger and more complex community which was hunted, shattered, and even now is pursued. They were part of a community generally even before they found each other specifically, and now they're all they have left. Frenchie lost his parents before the novel opens, and loses his brother in the opening chapter. He finds a group of traveling Indigenous people, on the move in order to stay alive. I like Miig as a leader, he's doing his best and focusing on teaching the younger ones what they'll need to know. He and Minerva are working to pass on their culture, balancing the need to understand with the maturity of the individual children.

A lot of the worldbuilding is conveyed though stories, either “Story” told nightly by Miig, or the characters’ “creation stories”, each person’s own history of how they came to be with the group. It lends a ponderous air to these details, where the reader’s desire to know more synchronizes with Frenchie’s hunger for any scrap of connection he can get. From the premise, I anticipated a scene in the factories, detailing the dystopia through voyeuristic gaze into the mechanisms used to cause their suffering. It doesn’t do that, thankfully, it stays focused on the characters, their journey, and their community. The physical bits of worldbuilding are in the places they pass through, the abandoned structures, and the garbage on the ground, the detritus that marks the wreckage of the world that was and the dangerous other people who also inhabit it.

I love the way the plot is unhurried. The endless travel is devoid of meaningful landmarks except for detritus. The pivotal scenes mostly hinge either on encounters with others or from stories. This changes toward the end after an encounter irrevocably changes the status quo and prompts them to change how they're running. I love the ending, it would be the best part if not for how great the rest of the book is.

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greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging 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? Yes

4.0

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