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Book: “Warrior Girl Unearthed” by Angeline Boulley
Publishing Info: Henry Holt 7 Co. (BYR), May 2023
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.
Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.
But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.
Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right – for the ancestors and for their community.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!
One evening I was perusing NetGalley, looking to see what new books were going to be coming out across my various favorite genres, when I saw something that made me gasp. Like full on gasp. I stumbled upon “Warrior Girl Unearthed”, the new YA thriller from Angeline Boulley. I loved Boulley’s debut “Firekeeper’s Daughter”, naming it my favorite read of 2021, and when I read the description of “Warrior Girl Unearthed” I gasped again. We were going back to Sugar Island, and were going to revisit some of the characters from that book, including main character Daunis. Elation. Pure elation. While I was worried that this follow up may have a lot to live up to, I’m happy to report that overall it was (mostly) everything I hoped it would be!
Given how much I connected to Daunis in “Firekeeper’s Daughter”, I was hopeful that we would have another layered and easy to root for main character, and we absolutely got that with Perry. When we first met Perry and her twin Pauline in “Firekeeper’s Daughter” they were young girls, and now they are two teenagers with very different personalities. Perry is our protagonist, who goes from chill and laid back ‘slacker’ to teen activist who wants to bring Indigenous artifacts and remains back to her community. Perry is both hilarious and brash as well as very vulnerable and passionate, and watching her find her purpose through connection to her culture and identity is a wonderful character arc. Boulley once again brings a lot of aspects of Ojibwe/Anishinaabe culture, be it language, history, or practices, into the story with ease. As Perry digs deeper and gets more invested in bringing these things home, we learn so much about her as a person on an individual level and on a cultural level. She had big shoes to fill with Daunis in the first book, but she fills them with ease.
I also loved how Boulley took a topic like NAGPRA and how it has good intentions but doesn’t go far enough/is too easy to find loopholes within and made it the foundation of the main theme of her novel. As someone who used to work in museums I had a general knowledge of NAGRPA going into this book, but I loved how Boulley explained it in this book in an easily understandable and digestible way for her audience. It also sets the scene for high tension stakes with a very slow build up. I loved seeing Perry reluctantly familiarize herself with the concept of artifacts and museum work with her mentor/boss Cooper, and then become fired up about the injustice of Indigenous artifacts and human remains and sacred objects being held onto by non-Indigenous institutions and people. Repatriation of Indigenous remains and sacred objects is a very important subject when it comes to Indigenous rights and issues, and I loved how Boulley contextualized it in a way that shows the violence inherent in the ways these things were stolen to be put on display, and how there is so much pushback to return them to their descendants. I also thought it was a clever dichotomy to present that along with the subplot of Indigenous women who have been going missing in the community and surrounding communities, as we have overt violence and cultural violence on display as Perry tries to figure out how to bring justice to her community.
I do have vaguely mixed feelings about coming back to see what Daunis is up to. Which is CRAZY because I LOVE DAUNIS. Just LOVE her. On one hand, she is such a formidable character, and having that connection to “Firekeeper’s Daughter” and seeing how her life has progressed and changed since that story (becoming more immersed in her healing skills, raising a son, serving as a mentor to her cousins) is mostly pretty enjoyable and rewarding (I have one qualm but I’m not going to list it here because it’s spoilery, but when it happened I was like ‘wait…. WHAT?’). But on the other hand, while Perry does shine on her own (see above, look at how much I enjoyed her), there was one minor subplot involving Daunis that felt rushed and a bit slapdash. It kind of took away from Perry’s story at hand for a bit and felt like it was a forced wrap up for the sake of wrapping something up. All that said, I do hope that if Boulley keeps writing about the Sugar Island Ojibwe community we get to see how these characters keep progressing as time goes on.
“Warrior Girl Unearthed” is another successful and enjoyable thriller from Angeline Boulley. Her voice is so strong, her characters are so well developed, and her deep dive into Ojibwe culture is detailed and accessible. It all comes together to make a highly enjoyable read and a successful follow up to a game changing young adult novel.
Rating 8: An engaging and important thriller/mystery that not only takes on issues of physical violence in the Indigenous community, but also the cultural violence of artifact theft and struggles over repatriation.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Warrior Girl Unearthed” is included on the Goodreads lists “All Indigenous Peoples List 3”, and “2023 Mystery Thrillers Crime To Be Excited For”.
The Library Ladies 