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.