Book: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
Read From: 7th June - 12th June 2021
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: Daunis is a Native teen, tasked by the FBI to root out the corruption in her community by secretly investigating a series of drug-related deaths.
This novel was put onto my June TBR following the ‘Bookstagram picks my TBR experiment’ I decided to try out on my Instagram. Shortly after my choices had been selected, I saw that Daisy (@readbydaisy) had recently finished reading this book and had absolutely loved it. Whilst this didn’t necessarily make my expectations any higher, I was definitely excited to give it a try especially considering that I had literally no idea what to expect, even after reading the blurb.
It’s safe to say that this book BLEW. ME. AWAY. The writing style is absolutely gorgeous and had me hooked from the very first page. I was so engrossed to the point I got the ‘5 star feeling’ within the first 50 pages, where nothing was even really happening. There were so many poignant interactions and moments that really stood out to me, with one of my favourite quotes being “my girl, some boats are for the river and some are for the ocean”. This quote really made me think about how everyone in life is on a different path and how people are destined for different things, and I feel like this is a constant theme throughout the course of this book.
It will come as no surprise that Daunis is an extremely strong character - not only is she a total badass, she also carries a lot of unresolved trauma on her back and is trying to navigate her identity as a biracial and unenrolled tribal member. However, alongside her strength as an individual I really appreciated how this novel emphasised the importance of a community and a safe support network with the Elders. Despite being somewhat minor characters, they were pivotal in Daunis’ journey and Boulley did such a great job of conveying their personalities through little quirks and mannerisms!
All in all, this book was incredible. It was a fun, action packed and exciting read filled with plot twists, but at the same time it was extremely educational about Native American history, traditions and tribal culture. I took away a lot from this book and I am still thinking about it to this day. I’m genuinely shocked that this is a debut novel - the writing was STUNNING and completely captivating. This is a book I definitely won’t hesitate to reread in the future, and the impact it has had on me is so great it would be a discredit to rate it anything other than a big fat 5 stars!