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The Marrow Thieves
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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 fligh
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Paperback, 231 pages
Published
September 1st 2017
by Dancing Cat Books
(first published May 10th 2017)
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Wow... if you read the back of this book, you might get the sense that The Marrow Thieves is your typical YA dystopia just with Indigenous protagonists. You would be mistaken. The speculative aspects of Dimaline's novel are not particularly important. What shines is the Indigenous narrative about loss of culture, abuse and murder by a majority population, yet survival and resilience. It's a powerful, painful book that does not hold back. It moves slowly compared to many other offerings in the YA
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I thought I would like this more. The idea sounded amazing!
When I finished the book I felt like maybe I had lost the other 3/4 of it somewhere.
The characters all felt underdeveloped and there is very little back story for the premise.
Set in such a wonderful landscape with what should have been a heartbreaking story...what I got felt inadequate.
I would have loved more history. Not just of the characters, but the growth of the totalitarian government and how the lands became so ravaged.
There were ...more
When I finished the book I felt like maybe I had lost the other 3/4 of it somewhere.
The characters all felt underdeveloped and there is very little back story for the premise.
Set in such a wonderful landscape with what should have been a heartbreaking story...what I got felt inadequate.
I would have loved more history. Not just of the characters, but the growth of the totalitarian government and how the lands became so ravaged.
There were ...more
I first came to know Cherie Dimaline's writing last year, when I read "Legends are Made, Not Born" in Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time: An LGBT and Two-Spirit Sci Fi Anthology. The character she writes about in that story is named Auntie Dave.
I wrote, then, that I had to "just be" with Auntie Dave and that story for awhile. There's a quality in Dimaline's writing that reached from the page, into my being.
That's the case, too, with The Marrow Thieves. I paused again and again as I met and came ...more
I wrote, then, that I had to "just be" with Auntie Dave and that story for awhile. There's a quality in Dimaline's writing that reached from the page, into my being.
That's the case, too, with The Marrow Thieves. I paused again and again as I met and came ...more
It is a weak dystopia that can be solved by technology currently in existence, and a pointless one that passes up more pragmatic solutions in favor of brutality and angst.
This story is set in a futuristic world ravaged by global warming (okay) where most of mankind has been left unable to dream (what?). The only cure lies in Native peoples' bone marrow (uh….) which is harvested with no respect to keeping the people themselves alive (of course).
First things first: There's a technique called a p ...more
This story is set in a futuristic world ravaged by global warming (okay) where most of mankind has been left unable to dream (what?). The only cure lies in Native peoples' bone marrow (uh….) which is harvested with no respect to keeping the people themselves alive (of course).
First things first: There's a technique called a p ...more
my first read for the Read-EH-Thon! So glad I finally got to pick this book up. It had so many incredible lines and absolutely tender moments. I loved Rose and Miig and Minerva, but most of all I loved the way this book was told largely in the stories that the characters share with each other.
There are a lot of interesting themes and subtext and symbolism within the story that tie the futuristic dystopian society of the book into very real issues of today, and the analogies just in terms of how the non-Indigenous of this country often view Indigenous people in society and how our cultures and traditions and very livelihoods tend to be overlooked and disregarded by them unless or until they desire something or think they can gain something from it and so decide to claim it for themsel
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Reading this book was kind of like taking medicine. I took it, and maybe it was good for me, but... I really didn't enjoy it.
If I read it as a sort of primary document, a study of one Indigenous author's survival fantasies, it's kind of interesting. Obviously residential schools were horrific and left deep scars and anger and I should read more Indigenous writings as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process and it's good for me, a white Canadian, to sometimes experience the one-sidedness and ...more
If I read it as a sort of primary document, a study of one Indigenous author's survival fantasies, it's kind of interesting. Obviously residential schools were horrific and left deep scars and anger and I should read more Indigenous writings as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process and it's good for me, a white Canadian, to sometimes experience the one-sidedness and ...more
I thought this would be good as it was chosen for Canada Reads competition, but I was really disapointed. I hate books that are just people running. The main characters were running for 5 years and they still didn't get to where they were going??? How did a party of 9 always have food and tobacco? What was the point of the dreams if they were hardly mentioned?
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Nope. This book tried too hard to be deep but wasn’t. The premise was interesting, but the plot just meandered along. There wasn’t any real character development for the main characters, and French suddenly gets jealous, moody and ideas of leadership grandeur two thirds of the way through. Is the loss of dream supposed to be a metaphor? And too many forced happy-ending reunions despite no happy ending. Blah on this book for wasting my time.
I wanted the book to be better. It had some interesting ideas but it fell down on some fundamentals. The first half of the book was a lot of no-consequences actions mixed in with info-dumping back story. In the last quarter things finally happen--a cringeworthy romance (the main characters girlfriend really really should have dumped him). Before finally we get to the plot that's on the back cover, but that doesn't get resolved.
Oh, and another thing. For most of the book we have this idea that bo ...more
Oh, and another thing. For most of the book we have this idea that bo ...more
Seemed written in a rush and the story didn’t flow. The characters needed more development, even with the back stories, they just didn’t seem real.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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I keep thinking that the author betrayed their characters.
Like they came to the author's dream, and tried telling their story hoping the story will be told properly yet somehow, somehow only a vague memory of it stayed with the writer and we never got to hear the really powerful story that happened ...more
Like they came to the author's dream, and tried telling their story hoping the story will be told properly yet somehow, somehow only a vague memory of it stayed with the writer and we never got to hear the really powerful story that happened ...more
I have no clue why people like this book so much. It is a lazy excuse of a young adult novel with plastic and fake characters. The "love" between Frenchie and Rose is so forced it makes me cringe. It comes off as trying too hard to be a good book but its not. I dislike the inclusion of Slopper being only there for fat jokes. Overall its a big disappointment of a book
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The premise of a futuristic world where people have stopped dreaming and indigenous people are being hunted for their bone marrow, because the process of researching and using the marrow apparently kills the donor grabbed my attention. It was a bit like a 'Star Trek' episode where people stopped dreaming (although it didn't involve a genocide like this book) so I thought I'd go ahead and plunge back into a YA book (which I don't care for) set in a post-apocalyptic/dystopian world (which I'm also
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Ever since they lost the ability to dream, non-natives have been hunting indigenous Canadians, whose bone marrow contains the cure for dreaming. French has been living on the run with his family for more than 5 years, struggling to survive through brutal Northern winters and dry summers. But sooner or later, they all know that they're bound to be found.
This started out so strong, developing the fear of being Native and hiding in the Canadian wilderness straightaway. It hits upon issues like raci ...more
This started out so strong, developing the fear of being Native and hiding in the Canadian wilderness straightaway. It hits upon issues like raci ...more
This book completely misses the mark of being a good book for young native adults. As a native myself, this book is a complete insult to our kind. It tries so hard to shove the fact that this book is about the native culture that it comes off as a white chick who checked her ancestory.com and found out that shes 0.5% native and embracing it. Such a disappointing read and a complete waste of my time
I finally read this YA dystopian novel where people perceived as being indigenous are kidnapped in hopes their bodies will help everyone else regain the ability to dream. The novel is more about the groups of people living on the run and the ways they connect and build community - very little is about the mad scientist component (this is okay but was a bit surprising based on how much it is included in most summaries of the book.) Also in the background are the history of the "residential school
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Wow. This book was something else.
CONTENT WARNINGS: (view spoiler)
I think I have to give this five stars. The characters, the infusion of history, the love for the native population of Canada, this is really not so much about the plot hook as it is about what makes someone part of a community and a moving, dire ...more
CONTENT WARNINGS: (view spoiler)
I think I have to give this five stars. The characters, the infusion of history, the love for the native population of Canada, this is really not so much about the plot hook as it is about what makes someone part of a community and a moving, dire ...more
The Marrow Thieves was kind of an impulse read. I decided to read the book because the author is visiting Ottawa for the Ottawa International Writers Festival at the end of the month. I only became aware that the author will be here just this past Thursday and to get the most out of the event I wanted to read the book.
The book does appear to be written for a young adult audience and takes place in rural Ontario's 'near future' (Circa 2050-2060). It follows a boy, Francis "Frenchie", who gets se ...more
The book does appear to be written for a young adult audience and takes place in rural Ontario's 'near future' (Circa 2050-2060). It follows a boy, Francis "Frenchie", who gets se ...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
this book had so much potential, and i really liked the elders' storytelling in the middle of the book, but it didn't deliver as i had hoped. i didn't feel that the climax was strong enough, and it seemed over too quick. the ending was cute but it kinda came out of nowhere. i liked rose and miig the best, peobably because their past lives were described in much more detail than the other characters so we knew them on a deeper level. i actually didn't know this was a YA novel going in so it expla
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God this is a bad book. I have no clue why everyone likes it so much. The author has a cool way of writing and is very descriptive but other than that the story is so bad. Everything about it makes me cringe and the forced "romance" and the bs inclusion of magic confused me so much. It's just a waste of time. Apparently, this book is to bring hope to young native children yet its a dystopian novel? The ending is bad and confusing. I'd like it better if the main character in the book was actually
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I didn’t like this book at all. I never ended up finishing it. I started it for school and I heard so many great reviews and it won a award so I gave it a shot but it was hard to follow and wasn’t intriguing.
This book is really bad. I keep seeing people asking "why do people like this book" and they're right, why DO people like this book? The only thing I personally like about this book is the authors way of writing and how she describes things but even then she lacks in being able to write captivating and interesting stories. The story is very boring and droning, all the characters are unrelatable and I didn't care how they turned out since we barely spend time with these characters. The way French
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That ending 🥺
I tried SO HARD to like this. I slugged myself through it praying for some kind of brilliant revelation that never came, for an answer to the question of why this was getting all the praise it was, and never got it. Part of it is my fault, the genre and I are an inherent mismatch. I didn't like YA even when I was a teenager. It is just too shlocky and self important and it appears YA editors don't put much effort to stop authors from going into the territory of florid prose or melodrama. I wante
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I brought this book with me on a trip, and read it during the long bus rides. I wanted so hard to get into this book because I know there is significance. The opening just jumped into the story but it didn’t seem to make much sense. When they talked about their heritage it was after the change, and I didn’t feel like it was necessarily about what happened in history. Maybe I didn’t fully understand it. Then I realized it was more about each of our character’s stories. Things happened but it wasn
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Apr 23, 2018
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
added it
Today I bring you a book that didn't make a blip in SFF, but which is SFF nevertheless. Perhaps because it's Canadian, perhaps because it's Indigenous, but whatever the reason I doubt most of you SFF fans read THE MARROW THIEVES, which takes place in a near-future with a group of Indigenous people on the run from bone-marrow harvesters. Though it dangles a SFF premise, it is a thinly-veiled allegory for the loss and trauma inflicted by colonization. This is *not* a criticism, as anyone who has r
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I was so excited when I read the back of this book when my friend showed me her copy. Then I went to the store and saw it was in the teen section. "Great," I thought, "Another young adult book." I decided to read it with an open mind. After all, there has been at least one young adult book I liked...I can't think of it right now, but surely there is one.
But it is not this one. This book did not grab me. It was flat and dull and really missed the mark. The idea had great potential, but it wasn't ...more
But it is not this one. This book did not grab me. It was flat and dull and really missed the mark. The idea had great potential, but it wasn't ...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Impracticality of the Schools [Spoilers] | 7 | 56 | Feb 07, 2021 05:14AM | |
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Not as dark as expected, and I'm OK with that | 11 | 84 | Jan 24, 2021 04:34PM | |
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Expectations (no spoilers) | 14 | 98 | Jan 24, 2021 03:53PM | |
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Never Metaphor I Didn’t Like (slight spoilers) | 3 | 57 | Jan 24, 2021 01:51PM | |
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Other non American indigenous SF&F | 9 | 71 | Jan 20, 2021 11:00AM | |
| The Sword and Laser: TMT: Nonfiction about the historical residential schools | 6 | 48 | Jan 16, 2021 06:15PM | |
The Sword and Laser:
TMT: January 2021 Pick: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
|
62 | 206 | Jan 01, 2021 04:02AM |
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Cherie Dimaline wins her first Governor General's Literary Award in 2017 with The Marrow Thieves. She is an author and editor from the Georgian Bay Métis community whose award-winning fiction has been published and anthologized internationally. In 2014, she was named the Emerging Artist of the Year at the Ontario Premier's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and became the first Aboriginal Writer in
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“Sometimes you risk everything for a life worth living, even if you're not the one that'll be alive to see it.”
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“We go to the schools and they leach the dreams from where our ancestors hid them, in the honeycombs of slushy marrow buried in our bones. And us? Well, we join our ancestors, hoping we left enough dreams behind for the next generation to stumble across.”
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