While the writing is somewhat poetic, I do not see any merit to the plot in this book. I wonder if the author was trying and failed to mimic the more successful books in The Hunger Games series? This novel describes an imaginary holocaust of Canadian indigenous in a future dystopian world where an evil white society must suck the dreams out of every innocent metis and indigenous man, woman and child. It feels like reverse racism where all western society is evil and the indigenous is the only pure race. The intended audience appears to be young adults. Certainly there is not enough context or sophistication to appeal to an adult reader.

One of the best book I’ve ever read. Gripping, terrifying and yet beautifully written. This book needs to be read slowly and without any distractions so that you can savour each sentence.

Intense and beautifully written. Nicely in your face for mainstream society.....First Nations people need a strong voice like this. She gives us a view into a repressed peoples' world. Well done.

Racist hatred as horrid as any anti-Semitic or Incel vitriol. All indigenous peoples are superior to all other peoples on earth, and all other peoples are out to get them. Nothing but freedom of speech can justify publication of these views.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a little slow for me at the beginning but then it picked up quickly. This is a dystopian Native American story full of survival and tragedy. North America is struggling because of global warming and non-Indigenous peoples have stopped dreaming. Indigenous people are on the run to survive with their dreams.

If you like this book, you will probably like A Girl Called Echo. A Métis girl leaps between the history of her ancestors past and the present, showing indigenous history as tangible instead of simply word on pages

This book is very moving. Frenchie makes us love his dystopian world. "The Marrow Thieves" is a wonderful book based on the future world, and indigenous peoples. The book is about indigenous peoples and "regular" people. The "regular" people have lost the ability to dream, and now they realize that the indigenous peoples still have that ability. So they set out to have as many indigenous peoples as they can. They build a machine to extract the dreams from their bone marrow. Frenchies adventures with his new friends are both sad and exciting. I really loved the whole book, but if I had to pick a favourite part I would pick the part where Minerva breaks the machine. Minerva is the eldest in Franchise tribe. She was caught, but when she was brought to the machine she sang a song from her heart. The song lyrics and the tune was strong enough to break the machine. I loved reading this book but to be honest it got a little boring at the end. The same things were repeating over and over again. But please read this book!

This book is a very smart dystopia where Indigenous people hold the secrets to help everyone dream in their bones, quite literally. Frenchie is your narrator taking you through this land where climates have warmed, and most have died of some plague. It's no wonder it's won many awards, and that ending.....Read it!

A novel This novel is beautifully written, reminding me of Eden Robinson’s novel, Monkey Beach. The Marrow Thieves is a departure from traditional indigenous lit however, because it's a dystopian (!) novel set in Ontario's near future! It retains some of the same mystical elements found in magical realism, but presents a harsher landscape where Frenchie and his cohorts must learn and re-learn how to survive. It's a sobering comment on the unending struggles of the Canadian Indigenous people, teaching us that a glimpse into the future can reveal yesterday's and today's repeated mistakes.

I'm not a fan of books that focus on climate change and global warming, but it wasn't an aggressive enough theme to turn me off. I enjoyed the book very much and wanted to see Frenchie survive and thrive, and without spoiling the conclusion, I will say that the ending was unsatisfying. I love open-ended endings and books that don't lay out all the answers, but this one feels like it's setting up to turn into a series, and I didn't pick it up with the mindset that I was dipping into a series. I LIKE TO KNOW.

Overall, an enjoyable read, especially for younger readers (YA and teen). It's not a standout amongst Canadian Indigenous fiction, in my opinion, not when you're competing with the likes of Thomas King or someone like Richard Wagamese (RIP), who is the KING of Indigenous fiction in my opinion.

Happy reading!

The Marrow Thieves opens with Frenchie’s coming-to story, a flashback that recounts how he came to be on the run in the northern bush, and who he was before the plague came. The bulk of the story is set in the bush, but several of the characters in the party share their own coming-to stories over the course of the book. Using a futuristic echo of the residential school system, The Marrow Thieves examines how Canada might repeat the horrors of the past by failing to acknowledge or reconcile with them. The science fiction element of extracting dreams from bone marrow is not deeply explored in a technical sense. Rather, the bone marrow becomes a powerful metaphor for what has been taken from Indigenous peoples, as well as the appropriation of their culture by those who have already taken their land, their resources, their homes, and their families, and are still not satisfied by the destruction they have wrought. It is a gut-churning portrayal entitlement. But despite the dark premise, and the threat that Frenchie and his friends are facing, I still found an abundance of hope in The Marrow Thieves.

Full review: https://shayshortt.com/2018/03/28/the-marrow-thieves/