4.5 stars

Firekeepers daughter

- I love the representation here, it made me realize just how white most of what I read is. It was very interesting to see how much tradition there was laced into her daily life, thoughts, speech Etc (info-dumpy)

- was a little slow to start, until the murder. And while I appreciate that Daunis was remembering more and more of the trauma as time goes on, this did make it easy to put in clues /red herrings along the book

- I liked the mystery element, it was structurally done very well with pacing and leading Clues

- brother was suspicious, especially by money Discovery, maybe before-- fight?

- was so saddened by his betrayal though, and the links he went to at the end to hold / manipulate D

- I had not expected the hockey coach to be in on it-- I mean, yes, there were the pucks as the how, but I thought it was well done to point at the rich guy helper rapist

- the entire sexual assault angle-- other than this being a trauma to Daunis, something scarily common-- what was the point narratively? Just to show how little power she had? To make us think that he was in on the drug ring?

- I felt like the messages of rape slash assault and it's pervasiveness and solidary of strength and women, all of this was a bit shoehorned in at the end, with slight heavy-handedness regarding the messaging. It took away from the drugs and crime plot

- I loved all of the discussions regarding belonging and fitting in, being loved, tradition. However I thought there were too many themes and topics tackled across the book

- I thought the 'I love you's happened too fast; I wanted more with regards to her parents; I liked the science and STEM elements; the villains monologue