The Strangers

Similar to its predecessor, The Strangers follows several women of a Metis family throughout the years. Vermette is a good story teller. She expertely guides you through layers and layers of lived and inherited trauma, despair and addiction, violence and sorrow, only to give you a few cathartic moments to shed some happy tears. I almost felt slightly manipulated. Most of her characters are damaged, carry burdens that can be traced back to traumatic experiences. I found Vermette's choice of not discosing some of these triggering events really interesting, even though readers of [b:The Break 29220494 The Break Katherena Vermette https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472734124l/29220494.SY75.jpg 49455862] might recall them. As if to highlight, that we humans are not that easy to solve after all. One ends the book, mostly remembering the females characters, as they are the main focus. And it becomes easy to draw the cause and effect lines of neglect and damage between them. Forgetting entirely the male family members who are so entirely lacking, and therefore most responsible for the bad circumstances these girls and women found themselves in. I probably should be slightly worried that I felt most drawn to the one character that was simply raging at everyone else in the novel.

I was a little bit hesitant going into this one because I was worried it might turn into a sort of “redemption arc” for Phoenix where she's suddenly not at fault anymore for the part she played in the events of The Break. I really enjoyed it, though.

At its heart, this is a book about mothers and daughters, and the way people try (and sometimes fail) to connect. The characters all have unique voices (though I don't get why some were first person and some were third person) and perspectives. It was interesting to read about the same events from the wildly differing points of view of two characters who were both there. There were a few parts that felt kind of like they were included to check off a list (one character's abortion felt a little “okay I haven't included this experience yet” for me).