Hi guys, welcome back to Book Haven with me, Kim. Today I'm going to be reviewing an adult fiction book I just finished called Moon of the Crusted Snow by Wabashig Rice, so stick around. Welcome back.
So today I will be reviewing this book that I finished not too long ago, and I feel like it is the perfect time, as where I am at least. It has been minus 30, minus 40, and we're almost snowed in today, so... This is a good book for me to talk about right now. So this was a really interesting read for me.
This is about Evan, our main character, who is a First Nations Anishinaabe man living in an isolated little village up in northern Ontario, I'm guessing. Basically, one day he wakes up and notices that the cable's not working, and then the cell phones aren't recharging, the phone lines go down, and eventually the power. So let me read you a little blurb inside the cover, and then I want to share some of my thoughts with you. It says, and the food supply dwindles as the death toll and panic rise, but the greatest threat to the survival of the reserve might come from within the community itself. So this was a very slow moving story.
Even in some of the most important moments, it was still just matter-of-fact writing, like you were almost there in person. Throughout this book, it was pretty much a very slow, creeping anxiety where you're wondering what's going to happen. You have hints, of just how serious the situation might be, but you don't really know for sure.
I was so anxious reading this as it goes along because I'm very familiar with power going out where I live, and also hearing stories from my dad's experiences up in the Arctic working in little communities like this. The author did a really good job of including information about their traditional ways, like a smudging ceremony at one point in the book he talks about. and especially about the hunting and giving thanks for the animals that they end up killing for food and using all the parts of the animals. So I really enjoyed reading about that. The story also touches on the difficulty of how new generations are getting farther and farther away from the traditional teachings, not knowing the language anymore, or knowing how to hunt.
And I know that can be a problem from my dad's experiences as well. He lived up in the Arctic and... It's interesting because they also lost power and my dad would always worry about the community losing power and having the pipes freeze because then you don't have access to your water. And sometimes it's so cold in the winters up in these northern communities in Canada.
It can be upwards of minus 60 degrees Celsius and it's so cold that they have to keep their cars running 24-7 or they just won't start again. And so I really saw the connection between some of my dad's experiences and the story being told in this book. So our protagonist is Evan, and he is a young Anishinaabe man, probably in his mid-20s, and he has a girlfriend, Nicole, and they have two young children together under the age of five. You get a lot of the character building and feeling of this family and the relationship between Evan and Nicole.
And after the power has gone out, and it has been out for quite a while, the elders are trying to calm the community down, and no one really knows if it's going to come back yet. But people start arriving from the south and in comes our antagonist Scott and he is this massive big built white man who looks like he's been in quite a few fights and he comes in saying that he's going to pull his weight and respect the community ways but that student crumbles very quickly. Tensions rise, the community is divided. and things go downhill really fast. So although I enjoyed this story I gave it three out of five stars which is still a really good rating.
I found it very interesting and all the information like I said it did do a good job of building my anxiety throughout the entire story and I really did learn quite a few things about the Anishinaabe ways. If I was to say like it or leave it I would say like it but definitely do your research and see if this is the right kind of story for you. Overall, I'm really happy to see a Canadian, especially an Anishinaabe Canadian author, come out with this novel, and I'm looking forward to reading more like its kind.
So until next time, I hope you enjoyed this review, and keep reading. We'll see you soon.