What a strange little book! I went into this expecting a thriller or thriller adjacent (I had no clue what it was about, really), but came out of it completely unsure how to categorize it. Often atmospheric but not really horror, often character-driven but with no real characterization, it was just kind of a block of text where things happened sometimes.

 Maybe the issue was in the structure (flashbacks happened in alternating chapters for about 1/3rd of the book, then we got flashbacks in italics within chapters, and then we got 1 chapter from a different POV that felt jarring). Or it was because there was just so much going on but with a very slow pace. A lot of what I would deem light horror (I.e. the interesting parts of this book) happened in the last 30 pages, and then it was never really explained. I don’t necessarily need an ending spelled out for me, but I would like to understand what the hell what the author was trying to accomplish.

Since when was the random mom in on this portal opening thing? What was the portal even for? Why was she constantly asleep (and why was that so much of the book)? Why bring up the missing women for like one page and never talk about that again? Did her backstory in Toronto/stabbing of her boyfriend with a few pencils even need to happen since it never seemed to come back around? So many whys!!

 

The summary of this book also suggests that it is about the ways colonization continues to harm Indigenous communities, but I just… never got that! There is definitely trauma and violence and Dawn grapples with that, but I’m unsure if these things connected enough for me to notice a cohesive theme about intergenerational trauma and colonial violence.

The writing was pretty well done, and it was short enough to get through quickly, but I can’t for the life of me determine what the story is, what I should have gotten out of it, and why it was told like this. Some compelling pieces but just a baffling execution. For similar vibes and themes, I’d recommend And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott instead.