The Marrow Thieves

Canada has a wealth of talented Indigenous authors and after the recent horrific reminders of Canada's dark history involving its Indigenous population at the hands of our government and various churches, I decided to read books by Indigenous authors on my TBR list. Cherie Dimaline is a new-to-me author and after reading The Marrow Thieves' blurb, I thought it was intriguing dystopian Teen read. 

This story is told from the POV of an Indigenous teenager named French and through him, Dimaline incorporates issues that affect today's Indigenous peoples - rampant abuse at government/church run residential schools, loss of culture and languages, genocide, racism and the destruction and disrespect of the environment. The strength of this book was in how these issues were included and Miig's emotional part of the story.

But this wasn't as powerful of a read as I had expected. It had a much slower pace for a book about people fleeing for their lives and I spent the majority book waiting for something big to happen and for the premise about the magical properties of Indigenous bone marrow to be explained. But we're given vague descriptions of the setting and premise which left me with more questions than answers.

Overall, I liked the Indigenous POV in a dystopian setting (it reminded me of Waug Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow), but this was an unsatisfying read for me with its very slow build to a rather weak and confusing climax. I tried to love this book, but this was a miss for me - please note that I am in the minority with my feelings for this book. 

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Cherie Dimaline

Genre: Indigenous, Dystopian, Young Adult, Canadian

Type and Source: Trade Paperback from public library

Pages: 231

Publisher: Dancing Cat Books

First Published: December 1, 2017

Opening Line: Mitch was smiling so big his back teeth 

shone in the soft light of the solar-powered lamp 

we'd scavenged from someone's shed.

Book Description from GoodReads: In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories".