Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
YA Fiction
What is it? A riveting page-turner featuring an Indigenous teen dealing with issues of predatory colonialism, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), first crushes, and family secrets.
What it’s about: Boulley returns to Michigan’s Sugar Island and the Firekeeper family ten years after the action of her hit thriller Firekeeper’s Daughter in this gripping stand-alone YA novel. A jeep accident wrecks Perry’s plans to spend the summer fishing; she owes her Aunt Daunis for car repairs and now she’s stuck working a summer internship at the tribal museum. Despite her original resistance, Perry becomes engrossed in issues related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) when she learns that a local collector is using legal loopholes to unjustly retain Anishinaabe artifacts and remains. A daring plan to repatriate these artifacts takes a dangerous turn and leads to a connection to local missing and murdered women.
Why you might like it: Characters are vividly drawn--Perry is delightfully snarky and self-aware and supporting characters are experiencing realistic, complicated life challenges. Critical issues like MMIW, sexual assault, grooming, and cultural heritage ground this fast-paced yet thought-provoking heist narrative.
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