234 pages
English language
Published Oct. 29, 2017 by Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc..
In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and with it the dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories."
I liked this story. Found myself entirely pulled in at times. However, I felt like it ended prematurely. It felt unfinished. Frenchie has a lot of growing up to do.
This book is about dreaming and surviving and hoping. It's beautifully written, with devastating lows and, something I did not expect, highs that make your heart soar.
Ho-ly! I cried. With almost every chapter. Blood quantum may be a tool of colonization but it's still around. I am not even a half-breed, and have existed in this weird, hyphenated space most of my life. This book felt like coming home.
Dystopian YA with Indigenous people protagonists in the area where today is Canada. It is a climate change dystopia focusing on this group of Indigenous people who are being hunted. After the climate change cataclysm people lost their ability to dream, but Indigenous people were still able to do it, so they are chased for it. It uses real world facts like the atrocities committed against the Indigenous population to basically remove children form their culture to make them assimilate the "Canadian" one (from around 1876 to 1970's). With this horrifying background and a devastated world the book is extremely emotional. It was a hard read at times with dark moments. But it is also hopeful showing the power of resilience and community.
An astonishing book. Every bit as brutal as I'd expect from an indigenous-focussed post-apocalyptic story, and yet there's a surprising core of hopefulness in it. And all the way through it's thoroughly human, often quite tender, in ways that post-apocalyptic stories sometimes forget to be.
I am glad I didn't quit this book during the less compelling 3rd and 4th chapters, because the ending, however unrealistic, was moving and the journey unique. At times, the more fanciful parts of the book jar with the dystopian setting, and I kept wanting a more scientific understanding of the marrow-stealing rationale. Yet I was charmed by the originality of the story and several of the characters. They are flawed and strange, disconnected yet loyal, strong but sometimes painfully naive. I wish it was longer, more detailed and written for adults, but it is a rare gem.
I was almost late for my morning bike ride to work because I HAD to finish this book and wow, I can't praise this story enough.
In the near-future dystopia of The Marrow Thieves , where global warming has ravaged the planet and humans have lost the ability to dream, we follow a group of Indigenous people on the run from Recruiters- members of an organization who kidnap Indigenous people and harvest their bone marrow, the key component that allows people to dream again. There's a LOT to process in this book: not only the horror of harvesting people for their bone marrow, but uncovering the layers of persecution and generational trauma that haunt the last groups of Indigenous people as they try to save their history, culture, and their lives. Instead of being stolen away and sent to Quaker schools for "re-education", this time, First Nations and Indigenous people …
I was almost late for my morning bike ride to work because I HAD to finish this book and wow, I can't praise this story enough.
In the near-future dystopia of The Marrow Thieves , where global warming has ravaged the planet and humans have lost the ability to dream, we follow a group of Indigenous people on the run from Recruiters- members of an organization who kidnap Indigenous people and harvest their bone marrow, the key component that allows people to dream again. There's a LOT to process in this book: not only the horror of harvesting people for their bone marrow, but uncovering the layers of persecution and generational trauma that haunt the last groups of Indigenous people as they try to save their history, culture, and their lives. Instead of being stolen away and sent to Quaker schools for "re-education", this time, First Nations and Indigenous people are sent to factories to die.
As a white reader, there's a lot that I don't know and need to learn about First Nations and Indigenous people of North America and Canada. There's a lot that I can't ever understand about the guilt of not knowing a word for "family" and feeling a fundamental disconnect between myself and my culture because my elders, the keyholders to language and culture and history, have died. Dimaline conveys that pain and heaviness and it's stifling. I hope this books does the same for other white readers and encourages all of us to take a step back and do the work to learn about the history of First Nations + Indigenous people. Dimaline is an incredible writer and I can't wait to see what she crafts next.
