Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Holy hell, this turned out to be a ride. I didn’t realize at first that it was a period piece but it slowly unfolded to reveal it takes place in the early 2000s — and why that’s so significant. I remember what this specific thing was like in that time in my own area with Tribal nations in particular. I remember it in rumors. This write up is going to be vague because I think the story benefits from not directly knowing about everything beforehand — there are twists and turns like a mystery story and it makes sense to me now why this ended up on popular lists like Reese’s book club — it’s a hell of a breathless, feminist story.

Daunis Fontaine wants to be a doctor and she will be attending the local college come fall to stay close to family. She is a fantastic head to live in —I’m really impressed with the way Daunis thinks — she is scientifically driven and so her thought process reflects the structure and sequences she’s comfortable with rather than the gray areas. This makes for a dynamic protagonist whose patience and drive are believable as well as her faults.

The plot twists are engaging and devastating and so interesting. Literally yelled and cursed out loud while reading multiple times. Somehow the story delivers death and drugs and undercover operations and the pretend-romance trope all in one — it is a behemoth of a novel.

Culturally so rich with details! From hockey lingo that is as familiar to me as anything to all the specificities and nuances of Native culture and especially the nitty gritty details of Tribal law, per cap, and all the complications involved in living in or near a Rez.

The ending is so emotionally mature and incredible and part of me can’t believe it’s real. To have had a YA story end this way, with the particular speech it does? I would have killed to see it when I was a teenager. I’m so glad young people are getting stories like this reinforced over and over.

It took me a little while to get into the book (at 600 pages!), but once the initial inciting incident happens everything is WHOA.

More Than Enough by E. Wambheim

This author has a self-determined mission to write soft stories about ace characters in gentle, loving relationships and in doing so has self-determined to ruin me. So that’s fun. They self-publish and the ebooks are so short and cheap I have been paying them on Ko-Fi for emotionally wounding me.

This one makes me feel the same way Kitbull the short film did — vulnerable and laid bare. It’s only been in fic that I’ve read such viscerally accurate depictions of what it’s like to feel so confused and alone in how you experience other people physically. Wambheim gets really specific about the sensations as well as the fear and desire and it’s just calling me out.

Applied to the “Beast” or the seventh son Fier feels so appropriate in a way I’d never considered in the story. It explores a lot of the themes of fame and prestige and expectation that I’m playing with a little with Rene, though more explicitly and more raw.

Instead of Belle, we have Petra, a male gardener who’s been the only person able to enter the great house after the curse happened and the beast appeared. Villagers are wary of him because of this — they think he’s a witch — but that doesn’t stop them from asking him to grab the things they left behind inside the house. Petra complies because he’s nice like that.

We also have a female knight, Sir Eckhart, one of Fier’s only friendly faces. She is great.

“More than enough” refers to the fears Fier has about ever fulfilling the perplexing things people tend to want from him. Before the curse, he was constantly bargaining with himself and hoping that whichever partner he had at the time wouldn’t make unwelcome advances. Yet they always do. In his ignorance and panic, he started to lash out at people until his reputation for an ill-temper grew. Very eventually, through some slow, mutual understanding, Petra sees through the veil and is able to create a real connection. Wambheim takes the time in a short novel to build their relationship nicely.