Firekeeper's Daughter

You shouldn't judge a book by its absolutely gorgeous cover (or title for that matter).

I was so hopeful about this YA Goodreads favorite from 2021. The premise sounded good and it is nice to receive a contemporary story about Ashinaabe in Michigan.

There are a lot of triggers in here you may want to chat about your teen with, especially if they are a younger teen. Multiple overdoses, making drugs, witnessing the shooting of a friend, and rape. And I'll throw in insta love because that's a romance trope that I find triggering. My issue is not that these very difficult subjects are in the book, but I think too many were thrown in. What bothered some other reviewers, that these difficult topics are glossed over, actually seems very realistic to me both from the viewpoint of how the Ashinaabe people are treated by non-tribal people and how girls and women are almost expendable when their lives are taken from them.

In some ways, Daunis is an interesting lead character. She was once a very good hockey player and hasn't followed the typical path so many other girls her age.