Each November, my book club reads indigenous fiction or history. This month, we chose to read this book. It was an excellent choice.
Daunis is an eighteen-year-old Chippewa living near the Ojibwe reservation in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. She feels like she doesn’t fit in either the while world or the native world despite belonging to both. She used to play on the high school hockey team and her half-brother is the captain of the local club team. When handsome newcomer Jamie joins the team and befriends her brother, he asks her to be his ambassador. As she gets closer to Jamie she finds out more than she expected and her world turns upside down.
This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel that explores all the feelings and issues without getting too sappy and deals with them realistically. I loved how immersed it is in Ojibwe culture and language. And it is so well-written. Hard to believe it is a debut novel!
My rating: 5/5
