Group Reads Discussions 2023: "The Marrow Thieves" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Come chat everything Marrow Thieves!

Some questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the characters?
2. What did you think of the world?
3. Did you find this book depressing or hopeful?
4. What worked or didn't for you?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[Rachel]

1. I adored them. I tend to bounce off a lot of YA because the characters are often thinly written blank slates, but Frenchie and co. are compelling and grounded. The kids felt like actual kids, and Miigwans is a rare portrait of non-toxic masculinity.

2. This is our world. Besides the central conceit where people lose the ability to dream, there's nothing in the book that isn't grounded in the sorry past and present of Canadian colonialism and genocide. It's believable because it happened and continues to happen, and because Indigenous people continue to be treated as resources to be extracted.

3. All that said, it's very hopeful, isn't it? At least as far as post-apocalyptic novels go. The reunion at the end made me choke up. They're still hunted and on the run, but at least they're together.

4. If it's not obvious, I really love this book, and I always recommend it to my students. Dimaline walks a delicate balance in telling a story that is an allegory for residential schools as YA adventure fiction. It could so easily trivialize these atrocities, but instead it uses its deft, poetic metaphor to invite a young reader into empathizing and learning more. It doesn't condescend or flinch away from its horror.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

1. The characters are engaging, I cared about them.

2. The world-building is asinine. If white people lost their dreams, and only indigenous people could dream, and dreaming came from their marrow, then white people would have bred indigenous people like they do chickens, cattle, and pigs today. They wouldn’t have ‘wasted’ indigenous people.

3. It is a depressing book.

4. I thought the book a fantasy, not science fiction on any level. I get that it was more like a parable or ancient myth, made modern, more symbolic than literal. Despite this, I find the premise more laughable than viable. The writing is gorgeous, the characters are three-dimensional, but the fantasy dystopia is too silly.

I can’t decide what to rate this well-written novel. So well-written, but so dumb of a world.

[Bobby]

1. The characters were pretty interesting. Several of them had back stories about how they ended up with the group. The pattern may be similar to other stories. I.e. Francis = Luke Skywalker. Miig = obi wan.

2. I didn’t understand the world. Maybe I missed it but I couldn’t really follow what happened to get things as they were or exactly what was going on.

3. Was not depressing because I really didn’t understand the point. I didn’t like the death of the young person. That seemed needless.

4. It mostly kept my attention wondering what would happen. But despite all the interesting description and action it didn’t seem to go anywhere or have a point that I understood.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I didn't put much stock in it being actual "dreams" and marrow, myself. I did fall into the allegory--we talk about sucking the marrow out of something when we're talking about really ensuring nothing is left, a very visceral, almost gluttonous way to describe consuming everything. And dreams--both the literal "deep restful sleep" kind and dreams as in aspirations are two things that are taken from oppressed folks at higher rates than the majority. So it read sort of like a bad translation of what really did happen in Canada and the US, where kids were taken and never came back.

It reminds me of current day issues where, say the UN or Doctors Without Borders will go into an area where there's an epidemic of some kind, and lighter skinned people in full hazmat suits will take people away and they never come back, leading some locals who don't speak English or French to come to other conclusions about what's going on.

So, I kind of left that bit out of it. April, as you say, I mean it's possible that other things happened too, and this story would have had a slavery component too, but I'm just not sure the author wanted to focus on that part? I'm guessing here.

For me, I loved the displacement in this world, the dual terror of being forcibly exterminated but also the joy of finding more people in your community, and cherishing them and the time to learn about your people. It really resonated with me that even when all sorts of bad things are happening, teens are falling in love, old people are trying to help the next generation, and couples are fighting with every ounce of their energy to stay alive for each other.

The dystopia for me, was along the lines of Brave New World or 1984 where they who control what you think and aspire to control what you do. And the decentralized nature of everyone wanting something you have really drove home for me some of the fear that comes with just existing some place where you can't ever be sure you're safe.

I also loved that it centered indigenous affection and joy even in the fear. I thought it was smart to have a young man as the main character, because we can see from him just how big he dreams, and how vital it is that he keeps doing it.

[Paul]

I loved the writing and the world setting created in this book. Sadly, despite the premise of the lost-dreams being fiction, the reaction seemed all too realistic. I also loved learning more about the indigenous people of Canada and some of the traditions described in the novel. There were some with wonderful descriptions of the world, especially the hunting scene with the moose. I did also like all the characters in the group with the coming-to stories horrible, harrowing and tragic.

The first half of the book was setup nicely, but I felt the ending let the overall down. Whilst there was some character progression, it seemed a lot of the latter half concentrated on the main character reverting to a youthful stereotype of doing foolish things through jealousy. It also cut down how dangerous the world was when two people lost to our central characters were found (not even through the agency of the main group).

[Anthony]

1. What did you think of the characters?

I thought they were mostly believable, although I’m not sure many emerged as more than sketches of people. Miig was pretty much the most fully-realized of the bunch.

2. What did you think of the world?

I was intrigued by it, for the most part. I do think it’s a bold move that there’s a sense of magic infusing this otherwise grounded narrative.

3. Did you find this book depressing or hopeful?

Ultimately, hopeful, in the sense that this vibrant community of indigenous folks will find ways to survive and possibly even thrive, in the face of really awful opposition and exploitation.

4. What worked or didn't for you?

What worked was a seamless, richly depicted portrait of modern (future) indigenous people keeping their culture alive. What didn’t work for me was the first-person voice. I just thought that French’s voice became too self-consciously literary at times. When I’m reading a novel written in the first person, I want it to feel truly authentic to the character who’s the narrator, and that just didn’t happen for me here.

[DivaDiane]

That’s a good point, Anthony, about the 1st person POV. It may not have been consistently authentic, but it did, at least for me, work to increase the emotional involvement.

[Kaia]

I found the story very engaging - in fact, I read it all in one day (not by design - I sat down to start it on my day off one day and then couldn't put it down). These days, I tend to avoid dystopias because they feel too real to me, but somehow this story managed to retain a feeling of hope and connection, despite the awfulness of the future world.

As others have pointed out, the author does a great job of revealing the harms and impacts of the real residential and boarding schools in Canada and the US through the future dystopia she creates. One thing I appreciated was that a lot of the details of what happened at the new "schools" is left to the reader's imagination. I think that also leaves room for the situation April described, which, while horrible, does seem like a plausible direction people would take - and maybe it was happening in some areas and the main characters just didn't know it.

I loved that connection with Indigenous traditions and languages was the key to overcoming the marrow thieves and how the small bands of people were able to find each other and create a community. I also appreciated how the main characters took care of each other.

A few things that didn't work for me - I had a hard time believing the time frames. From what I gathered, Frenchie was walking with the group for around 5 years, but were they just walking in circles? Certainly, if they were only going north, they would have arrived at their destination before then, and it seemed like they remained in Canada the whole time. Even walking only 5 miles a day, you would cover almost 2,000 miles in a year. And they couldn't have gone too far because Frenchie was able to connect up with his father in the end. I realize this is a minor thing, but it did pull me out of the story several times as I tried to figure out where they were and how long they had been together. I also could have done without the romance. While I generally like YA SFF books, this is one aspect that I get tired of - and as Paul mentioned above, it is handled in a very stereotypical way.

Those things aside, though, I'm very glad to have read this book. I found it to be very powerful.

[Panda]

SFFBC wrote: "Come chat everything Marrow Thieves!

Some questions to get us started:

1. What did you think of the characters?
2. What did you think of the world?
3. Did you find this book depressing or hopeful..."

1, While I feel that I was only allowed a glimpse into the lives of the characters, I did enjoy them.

I especially enjoyed the precociousness of RiRi. RiRi was always underfoot, looking for attention and stories. She found so much enjoyment in everything around her, including her candy boots. There was so much life in that child.

The significance of her life being taken was huge. RiRi loved everything and everyone. She had a huge empathetic heart, that gifted love and hope to everyone. I believe that the love and loss of RiRi contained the majority of the fuel that fired up the group to go out on the quest to find Minerva.

2. The world was a weak point for me. I didn't feel the world very strongly. I felt like it was presented more 2 dimensionally, and outside of a few key points in the story, such as the night of the pig pile, and the escape from the loft, there was no depth.

3. While there was great sadness, there was always more hope. Each story told, even the more difficult ones, always showed the strength of the narrator, especially in giving life to the memory of those lost while taking seriously their place in the world and the significance that they have as part of not just the group and people they are currently with but also to those they are seeking, those they have yet to meet and the future beyond themselves.

4. The sharing of stories really worked for me. Both the stories shared and the act of sharing are such a significant part of the culture. I felt that story time was given the utmost respect and was ultimately given additional attention, was more fleshed out and had the depth and warmth that was lacking in a lot of the rest of the novel.

As much as I enjoyed story time, much like RiRi, I found myself hanging around the outside, peeking around corners hoping to sneak a look or listen to what was going on. There were so few moments of really feeling the interaction of the characters with their lives and the world, like the few moments with the great moose, that I felt that much of the background was left blank, a green screen just waiting for the world around to render. Likewise the characters felt shallow and undefined. Even though the story is told through the voice of Frenchie, it isn't told through his lens. I often had no idea of his thoughts, feelings, state of mind, or physical state. It seemed odd to narrate a story through a character's voice without feeling, as if he was apathetic or bored having to be the one to share the overall story.

Thinking over the book as a whole, I feel like I read an early draft with a lot of promise that had yet to be fleshed out. Finishing the story made me want to read it once it's completed and ready to go.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

I loved this. Which feels weird to say because so much of it is so horrible - especially knowing that it’s rooted in truth.

I thought the characters were well done. I loved the found family aspect and how French struggles with finding balance between his found family and his “real” family.

I think the only part I found a little un-believable- was where Miig and the family decide to stay with Travis and Lincoln. I felt like with Miig already having been through pretty much that exact situation, and Wab already knowing Travis was not trustworthy- I questioned very much the choice to follow those two at all let alone share a meal with them and camp near them without extreme precautions.

I didn’t have any issue with the world building. Aside from the heavy allegory as Allison noted- my understanding is the schools weren’t schools at all but medical facilities used to take/process the marrow from Indigenous people to make medicine to cure the non-dreamers.

Maybe non-dreaming does not seem like a plague worthy of genocide, however I struggle to recall any actual examples of genocide where the “reason” makes any more sense, so… yeah. (What I am trying to say here is that there has never been/will never be a reason for genocide, so, the book’s presentation of it I didn’t question.)

I also loved the survival aspects and Miig and Isaac’s reunion at the end and Minerva seeming a little unhinged but also knowing exactly what she was doing the whole time. Just really loved it.

Will probably read the next book.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I too found the marrow+dreams part more of an allegory than an actual, explainable dystopia.

The characters are what hooked me and the idea that people's motivations remain the same even when the situation is bad. Community, love, belonging are things we all strive for in our (mostly) non-dystopian lives.