By Larissa Page
Firekeeper’s Daughter was all over Instagram, book club lists (Reese’s YA Book Club), and front-facing bookstore shelves earlier this year. With one of the most gorgeous covers this year, it garnered attention for its art as well as for the story’s originality and depth. There is a large amount of young adult fiction out there, but Firekeeper’s Daughter gave us a coming-of-age story unlike others you can find right now.
This story is rich with culture. Author Angeline Boulley hails from Sugar Island, an Indigenous settlement between Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Before reading this book, I wasn’t aware of this settlement/township but now am acquainted with its existence and importance.
Firekeeper’s Daughter introduces us to Daunis Fontaine, an 18-year-old hockey player who is simultaneously trying to figure out her place in the world and taking care of her mother, who is mourning the death of her brother/Daunis’s uncle. Daunis meets Jamie, the new kid on her brother’s hockey team and they start to form a connection. But when her best friend is killed, Daunis is pulled into a world she didn’t even know existed. Going undercover with the FBI as an informant, she works to try to solve the mystery of who is supplying tainted drugs to her community, and tries her best to hold on to what she knows is real and what community she belongs to.
This novel is action-packed. It’s big, but it doesn’t feel that way. Young adult novels sometimes leave me feeling like they’re lacking depth in terms of emotion or background, but I didn’t feel that way about this one. It’s a masterful coming-of-age and coming-of-culture tale while also being part thriller and part detective story. I feel like Boulley does her culture proud—the way that Daunis also does her culture proud.
This novel is now displayed face-out on my bookshelf; the cover art is too beautiful and meaningful to hide by sliding it in with spines on display. This also allows me to use the book as an easy recommendation to anyone looking for a quick-moving, thriller-like, detective mystery with a touch of young romance, the theme of finding your place and learning who you are and standing firm in it.