The Marrow Thieves

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.

Clever and well paced, would be a 6 stars if it was possible!

As a fan of the zombie genre, I enjoyed this a lot, because it reminded me of that kind of survival/end of the world narrative that is comfortably familiar, which I thought was a clever way to bring a story about residential schools to an audience that may have otherwise never encountered it.

Pacing was another aspect of this novel that was outstanding to me. The events and emotional moments are placed with a mastery that made them most effective.

Will I come back to read the next instalment? Yes, and I can't wait, this was my first encounter with Dimaline's work and it won't be the last because if her work is always that good I've just found another one of these literary voices I just can't get enough of.

Like Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower this is an intensely believable dystopia with anxiety-inducing on-the-run survivalism.

There were a few off points. I wish Dimaline didn't include the rivalry between the protagonist and a later character or at least had Frenchie apologise and own up to lashing out in such stereotypical jealousy/possessiveness before Rose lets him off the hook. Can we imagine any future population without macho posturing or could we finally model better ways to tackle insecurity?

It's an absolute page-turner though, and it made me cry. It's hopeful and it's invigorating in centring First Nations and Métis peoples.

I think this is a good book overall, but it's one I had a lot of trouble connecting with. I think if the main character was anyone other than Frenchie, this might have been easier for me to enjoy, but the fact is that I just don't like most teenagers, and first person POV from a teenager is always going to be a hard sell for me. I do really like reading Indigenous sci-fi, and the weaving and veneration of different Indigenous cultures throughout this book is a breath of fresh air, but yeah I just couldn't quite get into it. I think part of this is the narrow focus on Frenchie. The set-up where Indigenous people are being hunted because they hold the key to a society that has forgotten to dream feels more like a metaphor than a set-up. It's not hard to believe that western cultures will commit genocide for their own benefits, but God I hope we aren't so far gone as to murder children because we can't dream any more. Never seeing the world outside the Frenchie's found family means it was hard to understand what had actually happened to society. I feel like most of western crimes against POC's have been based in a hyperbolic need to protect something. We need to murder people, so we can dream again? The book never goes into what the consequences of not dreaming are, so I can't see why such horrors would be committed. I can assume there's some amount of propaganda involved, and admittedly I am judging this whilst sitting on my throne of white privilege, but yeah, it feels like a literary device in what's otherwise a very commercial read. Again, if Miig or Isaac or Minerva were the main character, someone who saw a little more of the world and had more rounded perspective, this all might have worked better for me, but my end review is more, “good book, but not for me.”

The Marrow Thieves is a story about finding and building a family, figuring out where you belong in a world that fears and hates you, and survival as an important part of resistance. It has a great, compelling story, characters that are immediately well-developed and easy to empathize with, and important, resonant themes.

A well-told dystopia should never just be about the future; it should also be a reflection on the hopes and fears of the society that it's created in. With The Marrow Thieves that's doubly true. The novel's central plot - of a society that's lost the ability to sleep, and which starts to kidnap Indigenous people due to a belief that they can bring the dreaming back, is a harrowing metaphor for the relationship that Canada has had with Indigenous people both in the past and the present.

The past aspect of that relationship is the most obvious one. Dimaline's characters speak openly about the history of the residential school system, and the intergenerational trauma that that system caused to Indigenous culture; beyond that, there are explicit parallels between the government's actions in the story and the actions of historical Canadian governments. It also speaks to how many non-indigenous people act today - they'll talk nonstop about dreamcatchers and spirit animals one day, and criticize movements like Idle No More and MMIW the next.

This is the Sword & Laser pick for January 2021. You can find the podcast and the Goodreads group if you like SciFi and Fantasy. Now, back to the review. I'm not sure I would have chosen this on my own. However, the audio was available on Libby through my library, so it was a good excuse to check it out.

The description makes it sound more dystopian in some ways than it is. However, if you're a part of the group that is being hunted and abused, does it matter if the rest of the world is falling apart or not? The book doesn't focus on the greater world as much as it focuses on the characters and their stories. Thinking about other books kinda like this one, The Hunger Games is the first thing that comes to mind, although I wouldn't say, “If you liked The Hunger Games, read this.” I preferred this to The Hunger Games. The story feels more organic. The relationships feel more grounded in reality.

I like that this book makes me think about society at large and how to handle injustices. I am fortunate not to be part of a group that is targeted by bigotry because of my heritage or because of the family I am a part of, as this book illustrates. It does encourage me to not be afraid or ashamed of who I am inside and fear about whether people will like that or not. It doesn't mean it won't hurt when people do attack and shame those realities. I pray that this will sink down into my soul so that I do not attack or shame people for who they are. Especially for those traits that they cannot choose for themselves.

I really didn't expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. This was an assigned reading for school. It was beautiful. Found family is one of my favourite tropes in books and this had a lot of that. I loved every character and it kept me fully interested and invested in their story to the end. It also made me cry multiple times. Especially the ending. It was tragic and hopeful and beautiful all wrapped in one.

This book! THIS BOOK. I am feeling bereft of opportunities to rave about this, because most of my closest book buddies steer clear of anything quite this dark (it is no darker than our world actually is, but that's pretty dark). I had to pause about midway through to process it, but couldn't put it down once I resumed. It broke my heart multiple times, and then mended it.

I loved this. The little kid in me who was obsessed with survival novels (my Side of the Mountain, etc) was jumping for joy at reading about life on the run in a world that has gone mad. In the future, most races of humans stop dreaming, which leads to depression and violence on a major scale. It is discovered that the bone marrow of Indigenous people can be used as a cure, and as a result, they are hunted, rounded up, and placed in “schools” where they are harvested. One only needs to think of concentration camps to realize how this could become reality and quickly.
We are with one band of survivors on their way North, where it is rumored that there is safety. The group is made of up of members of every age.
The absolute best part of this novel is that each character gets to tell their story and we are given insight into who they are and where they are from.
Fantastic, and should appeal to older teens and adults. The content is a little rough for younger kids. But it would really depend on the reader and how well they could grasp the concepts presented here.