“Wisdom is not bestowed. In its raw state, it is the heartbreak of knowing things you wish you didn't.”

Firekeeper’s Daughter is a contemporary YA mystery by award-winning debut author Angeline Boulley who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and brings us a story about her Ojibwe community.

Boulley describes her protagonist, 18 year old Daunis Fontaine, as an Ojibwe Nancy Drew. Daunis grows up in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the daughter of a wealthy white mother and her father’s Firekeeper family of Annishinaabe from Sugar Island. As she struggles to find acceptance from either community, she embraces her passions of science, hockey and the Ojibwe culture. Daunis is soon thrown headlong into a mystery, as tragedy follows tragedy with methamphetamine tearing apart her community and dear ones winding up dead. Daunis is taken on by the FBI as a community investigator and finds herself searching for answers to who is behind the destruction. As Daunis searches for answers she also finds herself fighting an attraction to the mysterious new stranger in town.

I found this an enjoyable read. It was wonderful to read a positive contemporary story with a Native American lead which gave insight into the beauty of the culture and its practices. I loved her badass Aunt Teddie. The story does highlight the tragedy of both physical and sexual violence against Native American women but still shows them as strong and resilient. There were a few YA moments for me, with the instalove and fake boyfriend tropes and a definite “I’m not like the other girls” tone to it, but overall an engaging story which will make a riveting watch when it makes it to the big screen.

Jingle Dresses. Good Morning America. ( )

This book was incredible and seamlessly weaved the FBI investigation with the indigenous culture! ( )

Representation: Biracial (half white and half Native American,) Native American and Black side characters
Trigger warnings: Death and murder of a friend, another person by suicide from a gun shot in the past and a grandmother, blood, grief and loss depiction, car crash, gun and axe violence, physical assault and injury, fire, racist and sexist slurs, racism, sexism, cheating, pregnancy, alcohol and drug use, abuse and addiction, hospitalisation
Score: Eight out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angelline Boulley circled my recommendations for months till now, and I thought no library would ever get it until a library got it. The book sat there on a display shelf till I picked it up, glanced at the blurb and headed in with high expectations, and when I closed the final page, it was thrilling. Where's Warrior Girl Unearthed?

It starts with Daunis living like she's split between her home and the Ojibwe reservation, where nothing happens in the opening pages save for her recounting her life in 2004, but everything changes after those pages when her best friend dies from a murder. Daunis joins an FBI investigation, but she starts hers as more deaths happen, and that is where the story shines in many ways. The pacing is mostly engaging and suspenseful as I see Daunis trying to discover who is the murderer, unintentionally stumbling upon another mystery on who is smuggling drugs in the Ojibwe community. Still, Boulley could've trimmed filler pages, of which there are around 100, to tighten her creation. There are not one, but two plots, adding to my enjoyment without being overwhelming or disjointed, but the narrative falters with its characters with their lack of relatability and the sheer number of them. Boulley could've removed them. The writing style is mostly okay but sometimes there are information dumps (which I found detracted from the central plot) and Boulley could've held back and instead improved the flow. I liked learning about Native American (is that the right term?) culture and medicines (no appropriation here,) a far cry from Indigenous Australian ones and the climax and conclusion ties everything on a high note. ( )

I borrowed this from my local library as a book club read for April 2024. Wow, what a fantastic book! Raw, realistic characters, a suspenseful plot, and deep insights into current issues on Native American reservations, written by a native. Also, I loved the itty bitty fantasy element in a subplot. I found this book difficult to put down. ( )

Gr 9 Up—When Daunis Fontaine finds herself at the center of a far-flung criminal investigation, she has to confront
her own family's past and embrace being a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) to discover the truth. Daunis is
an Indigenous Nancy Drew in this perfectly plotted mystery with a focus on life in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, and on the
Ojibwe reservation.