Reviews with content warning for Rape - Firekeeper's Daughter

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

1390 reviews

shuteyessee's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

3.75

I would give the indigenous aspects of this book fire stars. I feel like some of this book was very unbelievable or details were skipped over to keep the story moving. Some things were way too simple and others outrageously complicated. Overall I did like it

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jessikeenan's review

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1.5

Truly where to begin with this book. Maybe let’s start with the few good things. First, it is a mystery and I enjoyed trying to figure out the mystery and who was behind it. (Of course, one of the culprits was incredibly obvious and it was clear that the hockey team was involved.) Second, I enjoyed the community aspects of the books, especially the relationships between Lily and Duanis and Teddy and Duanis.

That’s basically where it ends. The overall idea of the book was great but I hated the execution a LOT. In part this could be because it is a YA and I am for sure not the intended audience. However, even with this disclaimer, I was really frustrated with a lot of this book. The tone was completely uneven. The book opens with a significant tragedy, centers around drugs, has a ton of violence (sexual and other) and yet every other page has a description of how hot Jamie is????? Like?????? Pretty much the tone was: the tribe is great, Jamie is hot, VIOLENCE/DRUGS/TRAGEDY. This compounded with the extremely shallow way that the tragedies/trauma is discussed, made it feel like trauma porn. Especially the

rape scene by Grant.

This scene totally did NOT need to be included and was definitely only there as trauma porn, to drive home (NOT SUBTLY) that violence is everywhere, especially against women of color and Native Women. My issue with this is that it’s already clear from the book (at this point

THREE WOMEN HAVE DIED

) and then the trauma is totally not dealt with, and seemingly thrown is as a side note. It comes up but really feels like trauma porn. I had already felt this (because again, at this point

three women, including Duanis’ best friend, have already died and more ink has been spilled about Jamie’s hot bod than the sadness about losing Lily

but this totally pushed me over the edge. Additionally I don’t like it when

rapes in books are cartoonishly black and white and then trauma is discussed in a totally superficial way. If this is because the book is YA then WHY IS THIS RAPE INCLUDED IN THE FIRST PLACE?? Either make something that traumatic the WHOLE FUCKING SUBJECT OF THE BOOK OR LEAVE IT OUT. It felt like the author just felt like she needed to tick the box of “Native Women are raped at higher rates!!”

I also got annoyed with the main characters decisions, and the superficiality of how the tribe is described. Like, you have tribe members dealing drugs and tearing apart your community but you’re withholding evidence from the FBI??? Everything Native American was really romanticized, which I understand why, but could have still been dealt with better. This is at least slightly more excusable because it is a YA book and intended for a less mature audience. (I think the subject matter totally doesn’t fit with this, but whatever.)

Finally, the writing style. If you took a shot every time the narrator or a character “points their lips at/in the direction of” you would die from alcohol poisoning. What does this phrase even mean??????? Why is it used so often???? We may never know. The characters are also extremely shallow (again, YA) but our MC is for sure a bit of a Mary Sue. Overall would have rated it lower but it is a YA book and not intended for me so I’m leaving it at 1.5 stars because the first half was intriguing but the decisions at the end made me SO MAD.

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lizzy1806's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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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caitlinmchoi's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

4.5

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alliegator1015's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative mysterious 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? No

4.75

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greatexpectations77's review

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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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