Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter

 

Book Review: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley 

Goodreads Description: As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in—both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. When her family is struck by tragedy, Daunis puts her dreams on hold to care for her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother’s hockey team.

After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?

My Review: Alright, peeps, I've got a good one for you today. This was, hands down, the best YA novel I've read in years. Every element was expertly handled, from the characters, to the plot, to its believability, all the way to its spectacular ending. Best of all, it doesn't reinvent the wheel when it comes to YA fiction - it honours many well-loved tropes while also breathing new life into these plot elements through a fresh Anishinaabe perspective.

Firekeeper's Daughter is a crime story done right. Many YA crime novels struggle with believability and don't fully justify why teenagers are the leads in criminal investigations when the police are RIGHT THERE. Why would an adult put a child in danger when there are so many other options they could take? For this story, it's the isolation and insular Ojibway community that justifies Daunis' involvement in the undercover case. The police have already introduced an Indigenous undercover cop pretending to be a teenager to get into the crime ring, but due to the community's culture, the police can't get close enough to the suspects to gather evidence. Daunis, however, is someone who can get them in - not only is she Indigenous with direct ties to the community, but she also has direct ties to the suspects, the land, and is well-versed in chemistry. The plot kicks off with the murder of Daunis' best friend, which reveals that on Daunis' reserve, someone has built a drug trafficking ring that stretches across multiple states. A group has been synthesizing powerful meth with an unknown compound, likely a plant that grows around the reservation, and it's the intersection of culture, intelligence, and her social positioning in the community that gives Daunis the edge in solving the case. I loved that this book took the labour out of my suspension of disbelief. 

Daunis has become one of my favourite YA heroines, possibly ever. She's got a distinct personality that resists falling into the "good girl/good student" trope that plagues many YA heroines. Daunis may be smart and more or less on the straight and narrow, but she resists black and white binaries -- she drinks and parties with her friends, she isn't scared of the meth users in her community, even if she doesn't partake, and she has no guilt over using prescription pain medications to cope with hard times. The book doesn't problematize her substance use or riskier behaviours, and instead treats them as a couple of dots on the diverse pointillism painting that is Daunis. Many YA novels seem preoccupied with "right" and "wrong" behaviours, especially from the main character, and end up pushing puritans ideals of the Madonna-whore complex, even if they don't mean to. Most often, they lean towards the "good girl" trope, where the MC wouldn't dream of drinking or drugs, though some protagonists do lean into their problematic behaviours and the narrative is quick to reinforce these behaviours as wrong, dangerous, or shameful. Firekeeper's Daughter avoids all of that moralizing by showing that these points of Daunis' character, whether it's something "good" like her intelligence or "bad" like her substance use, never end up defining her.

Boulley's masterful character crafting skills go beyond her main character -- everyone in this book was so realistic and well-rounded, but they also engage with character tropes in fascinating ways. Boulley is also quite subtle about this character depth, introducing small moments that don't stand out, but add layers to the roles we're used to seeing. Lily, the best friend with the big personality, becomes more than just the side-kick. Boulley contrasts the strong parts of her personality with gentler moments and circumstances while still honouring the original trope. Lily is loud but small, protector but also victim, and the wise one whose always getting into trouble. Jamie, the new love interest in town, also engages with traditional tropes in an interesting way. He is very much the Bland Boyfriend trope - a seemingly perfect man with no personality outside of the protagonist, yet Boulley gives us plot reasons for why he's like this. The fact that he's largely disconnected from his roots also becomes a major point in their relationship later in the story, which is a fascinating twist on what's usually just lazy writing. The Fake Boyfriend trope also plays a part in the story, but unlike most versions of this trope, it doesn't feel contrived, which is saying something for a trope that's best described as, "There were a thousand other ways out of this situation, why did you pick this one?" 

All in all, a really riveting book that takes what's familiar and beloved about YA and elevates it to new levels. The writing is crisp, clear, and beautiful, with many lines oozing wisdom and maturity. The way plot elements collide with aspects of Indigenous culture and spirituality is proof that you can take a story that's been done a thousand times and completely transform it with a diverse setting and perspective. If you only pick up one book this year, make it this one. I can't recommend it enough. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. The best YA crime novel out there. Period. 

Book Review: This Dark Endeavour

 

Book Review: This Dark Endevour by Kenneth Oppel 

Goodreads Description: Victor Frankenstein leads a charmed life. He and his twin brother, Konrad, and their beautiful cousin Elizabeth take lessons at home and spend their spare time fencing and horseback riding. Along with their friend Henry, they have explored all the hidden passageways and secret rooms of the palatial Frankenstein chateau. Except one.

The Dark Library contains ancient tomes written in strange languages and filled with forbidden knowledge. Their father makes them promise never to visit the library, but when Konrad becomes deathly ill, Victor knows he must find the book that contains the recipe for the legendary Elixir of Life.

The elixir needs only three ingredients. But impossible odds, dangerous alchemy and a bitter love triangle threaten their quest at every turn.

Victor knows he must not fail. Yet his success depends on how far he is willing to push the boundaries of nature, science and love—and how much he is willing to sacrifice.

My Review: Kenneth Oppel has had a special place in my heart since I was a kid, when his bat-tastic Silverwing series swooped into my life and made my oddball ass feel less alone. So, years ago, when I spotted a Frankenstein prequel by Kenneth Oppel, I was quick to snatch it up, but the book languished on my TBR shelf the last few years as more pressing titles jumped the queue. I finally found the time to pick it up, and to say I was disappointed would have been an understatement. This Dark Endevour is DULL. It's predictable. It's more than forgettable, it's why-bother-reading-able. The book's greatest weakness is that it's a Frankenstein prequel; its saving grace the target audience, who likely have not read the original Frankenstein and can't compare Oppel's changes to the original text. Yet even then, the book falls flat: the story is uninspired, the romantic and plot twists are contrived, lacking any sense of stakes, and the characters feel ripped out of the wrong time period. 

Slapping Frankenstein on this book leads to natural comparisons between the texts, but ironically, knowing the basics of Frankenstein makes the plot and twist ending of This Dark Endevour painfully obvious. Oppel introduces readers to his Frankenstein twins: Victor Frankenstein, the savant scientist that science-fiction knows all too well, and Oppel's creation, Konrad - the virtuous mirror-inversion of Victor, whose flaws have been bent backwards into much a nobler configuration. Konrad is sweet, he's compassionate, he's sensitive and gentle, but also brave, just, and level-headed - often the voice of reason, reigning Victor in when his lofty ideals pull them off the moral path. Yet this inversion of Victor's traits also reveals that Oppel either dislikes or doesn't understand the nuance within Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, as Oppel emphasizes Victor's negative traits - greed, ambition, stubbornness, solipsism - and crafts Konrad as the opposite of that, making both characters feel partly artificial and casting them in 'angel' and 'devil' roles. In the original text, Victor spent much of his time reigning himself back in, and the balance between doing wrong and trying to correct course is what made him so fascinating. Oppel's Victor feels more akin to the mad-scientist representations of Victor Frankenstein that pop-culture is more familiar with. 

Early in the book, Konrad falls deathly ill, motivating Victor and his friends Elizabeth and Henry to seek out alchemic knowledge that would lead them to the Elixir of Life to safe Konrad's life. At this point, the fact that this is a Frankenstein tale immediately gave away the ending. This is, after all, Victor Frankenstein, the man known for bringing back the dead, not for saving the living, so before I'd even opened the book (as Konrad's illness is spelled out on the back cover), it was painfully obvious that despite all efforts, Konrad wasn't going to make it. Oppel tries to combat this by drawing out the tension of Konrad's illness and faking out the reader in regards to his recovery, but the efforts fall painfully flat.  

The overall plot is organized around a three-point fetch quest that quickly became predictable and dull. Victor and his friends connect with an alchemist who tasks them with collecting the three ingredients needed to save Konrad, and holy crap was this boring. No amount of cool glow-in-the-dark moss, demon fish, or wolf's eye alchemy could distract from the terrifyingly predictable arcs of find thing - attacked by monsters - barely escape with item. This formula repeats again at the finale as trusted characters turn on each other and the actual creation of the Elixir becomes yet another fetch mission. The story could have worked if it was in a video game, where the agency of players could have mitigated some of the boredom from the plot's predictability. Instead, the reader is dragged along, beat by expected beat, without anything to change up the formula.

Finally, the characters. As I already mentioned, Victor and Konrad are two-dimensional representations of the "good" and "bad" twin, although thankfully this becomes less pronounced as Konrad becomes bedridden and less of an active character. Elizabeth was also difficult to stomach through much of the text. Many times, she asserts her equality to the boys by declaring that she's braver, stronger, and more tenacious than others (certainly Henry). The characters often have a "Don't You Know, Bob?" moment where they recount when Elizabeth bested the boys, was braver than them, or, GASP - wore trousers. These conversations feel so contrived, like Elizabeth is arguing against someone that isn't even there, asserting her autonomy and independence when no one was questioning it (other characters, narrative, even audience). I can't help but wonder why Oppel felt the need to assure audiences of Elizabeth's Girl Power! and can only assume it's because of the time period the book is set in. Finally, Oppel establishes an interesting romantic conflict between Victor, Elizabeth, and Konrad, but introduces this too late (so it feels like it comes out of nowhere, when this romantic tension could and should have been underlying their interactions from the beginning). This tension also doesn't lead to much besides some simmering resentment and moments of will-they-won't-they. I wish this romantic tension was better defined, upped the stakes, and actually lead to consequences in their relationship. It would have been nice to see that simmering resentment actually pitch up to a boil. 

All in all, this book isn't worth the read. Even as a fun, dumb pulp read, there's nothing really fun about it. With how predictable the whole plotline was, it would have been smarter to start the plot at book 2, where Konrad is already dead and build to how Victor plans to bring him back, even if that would have had its own complications. That concept at least has some creative possibilities within in, but this book left such a bad taste in my mouth that I don't care to see where Oppel takes this concept. It's dead in the water if you ask me, and not worth the lightning for its resurrection. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. Boring and uninspired.