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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Sisters of the Lost Nation is a nice debut novel with an intriguing story that draws on the real-life horrors native women face to tell its tale. I'm always interested in own voices stories, and there is much value in this work on that basis alone. My critiques are twofold. First, and this is no fault of the work itself, rather the marketing, this is not a work of the horror genre, rather a thriller through and through. If you pick this up expecting horror, you will be disappointed. Second, the characters are interesting, but their development was too lacking to carry the work, and the thriller aspects were too slow paced to drive the story in that aspect as well, and the place was vague enough that it wasn't immersive, so while I enjoyed the book, it lacked enough in any one literary aspect to hook me. 3.5 stars
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
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:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really really wanted to love this novel. It carries an important message about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women told from the point of view of a young woman in the thick of loss on the reservation. However, the non-linear writing structure did not work for me. Some flashbacks work as an effect writing device, but in this novel, I often felt confused and as if I had missed something.
I appreciated the author delving into the difficult balance of preserving culture and history while also forging methods to support, sustain, and improve life of indigenous peoples.
There was nuance in recognizing that Two Spirit people are not rigidly defined.
The tribal casino in this novel was ripe for grooming, sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and abuse. The story highlights how easily the worst of humanity can take hold of people.
And...spoiler alert...while I am not often a fan of happy endings tied up with a bow, I liked that good things finally happened for these characters.
"The easy explanation was to blame it on jurisdiction, but the cold truth was it went on because too few non-Natives with the power to make a difference gave a damn...with poverty as an insurmountable hurdle on most res- ervations, tribal police forces were either nonexistent, understaffed, or underfunded. Added up, reservations became easy places to get away with wrongdoing-murder included."
"...think of everything that had been taken from the woman, and that which had been taken from them all. An uplifting spirit. A positive force. A voice."
I appreciated the author delving into the difficult balance of preserving culture and history while also forging methods to support, sustain, and improve life of indigenous peoples.
There was nuance in recognizing that Two Spirit people are not rigidly defined.
The tribal casino in this novel was ripe for grooming, sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and abuse. The story highlights how easily the worst of humanity can take hold of people.
And...spoiler alert...while I am not often a fan of happy endings tied up with a bow, I liked that good things finally happened for these characters.
"The easy explanation was to blame it on jurisdiction, but the cold truth was it went on because too few non-Natives with the power to make a difference gave a damn...with poverty as an insurmountable hurdle on most res- ervations, tribal police forces were either nonexistent, understaffed, or underfunded. Added up, reservations became easy places to get away with wrongdoing-murder included."
"...think of everything that had been taken from the woman, and that which had been taken from them all. An uplifting spirit. A positive force. A voice."
2.5 stars for form and execution, rounded up to 3 because the importance of the topic cannot be overstated.
I really wanted to like this one, and I think that highlighting MMIWG is vitally important. My main issue with this book is the execution. Medina definitely has some great ideas here, but they’re weighed down by excessive passive voice, over-explaining, and purple prose. I found myself focusing more on where edits should have been made to tighten up the writing than the actual words themselves. At many points it felt like Medina could not trust the reader to use context, and instead needed to explicitly state every description and action of the characters. For example, at one point a character wipes their eyes during a difficult conversation, but instead of allowing the reader to infer that the character is crying, the sentence goes on to say that the character looks like they’re crying. There are many other examples of this telling vs showing that greatly took me out of the immersion of the story. At times, the writing almost felt like someone writing an analysis of a piece of fiction, rather than its own independent story.
This story tackles many topics of Native life, and I wish that they had been explored in more depth. Anna’s bullying at school takes up a significant part of the storyline that I think would have ultimately been better served by delving more deeply into her interest in the tribe’s history or her own understanding of her gender expression. I think that the two spirit point was very interesting, but the lack of exploration made many of Anna’s behaviors feel like a “not like other girls” story.
Like many others have stated, this book would be much better suited by a general fiction or contemporary fiction classification. The supernatural elements are enjoyable as they relate to the tribe’s stories, but are not particularly thrilling or scary enough to do justice to the horror/thriller category.
The book’s strength is the importance of its topic. Medina depicts a reality that is unfortunately all too real for Native women and girls, while still providing a hopeful lens. I sincerely hope Medina continues to write more on this topic, as I felt that the strongest part of this book was its epilogue where he synthesizes the reality of MMIWG for a deeply impactful final line.
I really wanted to like this one, and I think that highlighting MMIWG is vitally important. My main issue with this book is the execution. Medina definitely has some great ideas here, but they’re weighed down by excessive passive voice, over-explaining, and purple prose. I found myself focusing more on where edits should have been made to tighten up the writing than the actual words themselves. At many points it felt like Medina could not trust the reader to use context, and instead needed to explicitly state every description and action of the characters. For example, at one point a character wipes their eyes during a difficult conversation, but instead of allowing the reader to infer that the character is crying, the sentence goes on to say that the character looks like they’re crying. There are many other examples of this telling vs showing that greatly took me out of the immersion of the story. At times, the writing almost felt like someone writing an analysis of a piece of fiction, rather than its own independent story.
This story tackles many topics of Native life, and I wish that they had been explored in more depth. Anna’s bullying at school takes up a significant part of the storyline that I think would have ultimately been better served by delving more deeply into her interest in the tribe’s history or her own understanding of her gender expression. I think that the two spirit point was very interesting, but the lack of exploration made many of Anna’s behaviors feel like a “not like other girls” story.
Like many others have stated, this book would be much better suited by a general fiction or contemporary fiction classification. The supernatural elements are enjoyable as they relate to the tribe’s stories, but are not particularly thrilling or scary enough to do justice to the horror/thriller category.
The book’s strength is the importance of its topic. Medina depicts a reality that is unfortunately all too real for Native women and girls, while still providing a hopeful lens. I sincerely hope Medina continues to write more on this topic, as I felt that the strongest part of this book was its epilogue where he synthesizes the reality of MMIWG for a deeply impactful final line.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual violence, Trafficking
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No