Book Review: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Posted on March 5, 2020 at 9:30 am by Gene Ambaum

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline. Dancing Cat Books, 2017. 9781770864863. 234pp.

In this post-apocalyptic future, the Earth is pretty messed up, and so is a lot of  humanity. Most people can no longer dream, but the indigenous people of North America are the exception, so they’re being rounded up and sent to “schools” where their ancestors’ dreams are harvested from their bone marrow. The process is as awful as it sounds and kills those subjected to it, reducing them to the material the non-indigenous want.

Frenchie has lost his family, but becomes part of a group of mostly children trying to evade agents of the Canadian government’s Department of Oneirology. Guided by two adults — Miigwans, a man still struggling with the loss of his husband, and Minerva, a quiet old woman who does a lot of watching and a little laughing — they head north. Along the way they tell stories and try to help the kids heal, or at least keep going. They’re all in for more pain and loss along the way, but there’s also a bit of joy, too.

This book was so harrowing in places that I had to put it down a few times even though I wanted to tear right through it. It’s easily the best YA novel I’ve read in the last few years.