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kari_f 's review for:
Where They Last Saw Her
by Marcie R. Rendon
“To so many people we’re nothing but a bunch of drunks—all the while they collect their paychecks ‘serving’ us”
This book, written by White Earth Anishinaabe Nation author Marcie R. Rendon, is a suspense novel that draws attention to the very-real-world issues regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women. Our main character is a woman from Red Pine out on a run, training for the Boston Marathon. When a woman's scream pierces the quiet of the forest, Quill takes up the cause and will stop at nothing to figure out who the scream belonged to and what happened to her.
This book, written by White Earth Anishinaabe Nation author Marcie R. Rendon, is a suspense novel that draws attention to the very-real-world issues regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women. Our main character is a woman from Red Pine out on a run, training for the Boston Marathon. When a woman's scream pierces the quiet of the forest, Quill takes up the cause and will stop at nothing to figure out who the scream belonged to and what happened to her.
Some elements in the book I liked and/or found powerful:
- A Native woman struggling to navigate her multiple identities relating to cultural heritage, familial expectation, and autonomy.
- Systemic oppression, injustice, and mistreatment of Native people and Native land, and how these impact everyday life and add to generational trauma.
- An exposition of how capitalism has impacted Native communities as a whole, as well as on individual levels. Oil pipeline camps with little oversight play a huge part in this book, as well as the corruption of government/law enforcement and the complicity and toxicity of bystander culture.
- The main character is a runner, and her need to run is commensurate with the feeling that she wants to escape the generational trauma of her life. The idea and stigma around therapy is discussed and pondered through the events of this book.
Some elements in the book I didn't love:
- The main character made a LOT of decisions that were unsafe. While I understand her reticence to go to the police, she continues to put herself (and by extension, her children and her friends) in perilous situations that could have been avoided if she had clued others into what she was uncovering.
- There was a lot of detail that was told instead of shown, and entire sections of superfluous information that we didn't need to know. I often like when we get the details of an everyday life, but some of these were entire pages and/or were repetitive.
- At times the book felt preachy, like the author took a pause on the story to deliver a PSA. While I 100% understand that the story's events run parallel to very real world concerns, the reader didn't need to be spoken to directly to understand that. The story itself was enough to get that message through loud and clear.
Overall this was a pretty dark read that exuded a sense of fear and helplessness, which effectively shed light on very real social issues. As I read, I felt both frustrated for and frustrated with the main character as she dove deeper into her quest to uncover the truth. I think that this is a compelling story and the themes were incredibly timely and important, despite me not jiving with the writing at times.