Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Firekeeper's Daughter

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

125 reviews

greatexpectations77's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

4.25

I really enjoyed this book, and I think I would actually put it between a 4.25 and 4.5, like a 4.4. It did get a little bit long for me in parts, and I also either missed or there wasn't a main moment where

Daunis and Jamie kind of transitioned from not making out to making out.

Excited to read the second one in this series, and I'll be keeping an eye on this author. I did feel like a little bit in the beginning that Jamie was kind of playing the second podcast seat who just asks questions so that the main speaker can fill in the audience on the answers, specifically about Native information. But I understand that that's a technique of learning that's more natural than Daunis just explaining everything like narrator breaking the fourth wall. Also, this is aimed at younger folks than me, and I may not have noticed it as much if I didn't know of the information already. I think this book leaves the reader with a WEALTH of knowledge about Indigenous people in a way that isn't teachy, and that's super valuable.

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rmljacob39's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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jess_all_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

I LOVED Firekeeper's Daughter. I highly recommend it to anyone.

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theobeanz's review

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adventurous emotional informative mysterious 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? No

4.5

I’d check out the trigger warning first. This book was really interested in the topics it covered. I was a very personal display of how indigenous women don’t receive the justice they deserve for the traumas they experience. I really liked how the community and elders supported in un-static ways. I feel like grief was addressed fairly appropriately. I didn’t anticipate the twists of this book.

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leafilys's review

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emotional 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? Yes

5.0

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detectivevaliant's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

I couldn't put this book, it definitely threw off my sleep schedule. I found myself really immersing in the story, the characters, and Daunis' journey. I have also been looking for more stories with diverse perspectives and this is the first book I've read with a native main character. I'm thankful the author shared some of her culture through this book. Everything from the characters, place and stakes feel real, from the joy and connection of community to the harsh reality of the injustice that native women face.

Even though I am giving this book such a high rating, it has a lot of problems and loose ends. I did feel like the beginning was slow on the mystery/investigation side. It took a while for Daunis to move the discovery and sleuthing along, but it does pick up and keep you guessing. The twists are not so surprising because they are hinted at many times. It may be worth pushing through if you feel like it's not picking up at first, but I think it can come off mishandling serious topics and juggling too many plotlines, characters and information. It is quite long and some of it could have been cut down. There are a couple of things that gnawed at me and you can see the short, vague spoiler or the longer spoilers to see if this will be a hit or miss for you.

Short:

The romance between Daunis and Jamie is weird. Not only is he a 22 year old with a secretive career while Daunis is an 18 year old that just started college, but there is an unhealthy power dynamic between them. It's also instalove.

There is a rape scene that receives no justice and feels unnecessary to add, especially since more could have done in handling in the aftermath of it better.

Daunis' development is sprinkled in along with the billion other plotlines and ideas that get mentioned almost every page. She is very judgmental toward women her age as a nonfeminine, sporty woman in STEM who thinks she's so different than other girls. They are times where she realizes she has been unfairly judging others, but there was too much going in the plot.

There is just a lot going on in general.

Long:

I wasn't a fan of Daunis and "Jamie." First, this is a man with a whole agent career interested in a girl who hasn't started college yet, barely 18 while he's 22. Plus it was his idea to make her a CI and to fake date her all while she's grieving her best friend, her uncle and thinks her grandma's dying. He took advantage and I couldn't get over how icky their relationship felt so I never rooted for them. I was glad they didn't officially end up together and she chose herself and told him to choose himself. They didn't love each other, in my opinion.

Also there is a point where Daunis is sexually assaulted and I couldn't understand why that was included. I believe the intention was to bring attention to how native women are assaulted, killed, and kidnapped at alarming rates and there often isn't justice. I don't think it would make sense for Daunis to be truly healed from this and it is acknowledged at the end with the yellow pansies. Though there is a lot going in the story and I think that there was probably too much going on to give this plotline and other certain aspects more time in the narrative to do it justice. As I mentioned, there are a lot of areas that have no resolution. I decided that was intentional to show that realistically justice does not happen as we'd want it to. However, the mention of rape and the rape scene needed more time dedicated to acknowledgment and careful handing of it. It is also heavily implied that Dana raped Levi Sr. and it's just brushed past. I did side-eye how this was handled during Daunis and Levi Jr.'s conversation toward the end.

I saw Daunis' judgmental attitude toward other young women as a flaw and I wish it was more obvious that she was growing and realizing that she was being terrible to those girls just like the guys she criticizes. She always calls out Levi for not treating women with respect, but she doesn't either even if she's not sleeping with those girls like Levi or the boys on the hockey team. At first, she criticizes the girlfriends of the hockey players as "anglerfish girlfriends" (bottom feeder fish that latch onto their partner like a parasite - a paraphrase of her words). But when she "becomes" one herself, she realizes by spending time with the girls that she was wrong about them and they are very nice, despite how mean and distant she has been to them.

Admittedly, you have to suspend a lot of belief to think that this 18 year old could do all this, but hey, that's for you to decide if you want to turn a blind eye. For me, there were flaws, but I think me connecting with Daunis, her feeling like a real person, relatable and flawed, is what made me intuitively think this was 5 stars instead of somewhere between 4 and 5 stars...

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lola_rodrigo's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Loved the main character. The plot was done really well. I cried so much, especially at the end.

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jennaniho's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This was the first book I read about the Ojibwe community and culture by an Ojibwe author. Angeline's writing is riveting and beautiful. I couldn't put this book down because it is so good! You could read how she loves her culture through the character of Daunis Fontaine. It's the kind of book that deserves a TV series (which I think it's already in the works!).

What I love the most about this book is how the story flows seamlessly from beginning to end. Daunis is a character that you instantly connect with because of her authenticity and strong spirit. Though there were moments in the book where the story felt a bit long and overly descriptive, it was quickly picked up by the thrill of a clue, a newly discovered secret, or even a new betrayal.

Another element I love about the book is how it explores the relationship between Native and Non-Native folk in current times, showing mature themes, but not in a graphic way. This adds to Daunis' relatability, because these issues continue to impact people of all ages, especially Indigenous communities, and I feel they were treated realistically in this book.

Firekeeper's Daughter can be viewed as a coming-of-age story, but I see it more as a hero's journey. Daunis Fontaine has all the traits of a heroine: she is courageous, cunning, empathetic, intuitive, and capable of learning from her mistakes. Her story mirrors that of many Indigenous women who have faced unimaginable—and often unjust—challenges in their desire to be authentically themselves in a world that continues to push them to believe they can't. While we often admire Greek heroes, I admire Native women even more. Because their stories are not myths...they are living proof that you can overcome adversities no matter what comes at you.

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icspicthia's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Blending indigenous culture, scientific curiosity, youthful romance, and suspenseful inquiry, this book has twists and turns that keep a steady pace. Daunis, the protagonist of the story is strongly rooted in her Ojibwe heritage as well as having an expansive understanding of scientific process. Set in 2004, 18-year-old Daunis becomes entangled in the investigation of meth distribution in her home town. She is usually level-headed and tries her best to balance her responsibilities to the investigation with her obligations to her community, while also dealing with the complicated feelings she has for one of the investigators. She has intentions to be a good informant and protect her community, intentions she occasionally finds at odds with each other. Daunis is not perfect; she has her blindspots and biases based of her past experiences and youth, but she is a compelling character who keeps your attention and best wishes for her success throughout.

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alyssadorn's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective 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? No

5.0

From the first page, I was hooked. This book makes me want to write an essay about it, that’s how compelling it is in how it invites readers to explore the themes, learn the characters, and investigate the intrigue! The characterization is vibrant, the cultural nuance captivating, and the traditions poignant. The worldbuilding is top-tier, and every character feels real (with the possible exception of Jamie, but the juxtaposition of Jamie and his lack of a firm identity with Daunis and her exploration of all her identity facets came together in a really fully-fleshed-out way).

The first 90ish pages are a little slow, but after something intense happens (I don’t want to spoil it), I was fully immersed as the plot just gets more and more intense while existing within the context and nuances of racism, tribal politics, relative privilege, science and traditional medicine, storytelling traditions/earning someone’s story, the persistence of violence against native women, and more all shown within our FMC and her community in a compelling and unique voice that highlights a community surviving in the face of adversity and grief— current and ancestral.

The way absolutely everything is shown, not told, with nuance and a smooth melding of traditional teachings and contemporary realities is part of why I was shocked to learn this is a debut novel; it’s just so good!

The ways in which so many of the themes and stories come full circle in this book, connecting and meaning growing from the connection, is masterful— I especially liked the moment where we see her in her dance regalia and we know her because we now know the story of how she gained each piece of that regalia.

And the way the book begins and ends with the East! “Where all journeys begin.”

And the definition of a lee lee being trilled mostly to honor someone but “other times there’s more to it. Something else. But I’m not sure what.”

and how later lee lees are trilled and she recognizes them more deeply— “it means we faced worse than you and we are still here. It is our survival song.”

Plus, I enjoyed the friends to enemies to reluctant allies to lovers of it all, though the romance really took a back seat for me; what really shown was the community.

I would definitely recommend this book for older teenagers to adults, not younger teens, even though it’s listed as YA.

I will say the “guy lies” arc could’ve been done better— less black and white thinking or show her adjusting her view to more shades of grey as more information comes to light.

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