It’s 1990. Sixteen-year-old Morgan’s mom left when she was 10, but Morgan tries not to think about that; she has a decent life with her white commercial fisherman father. But Morgan finds it tough being Native in a largely white school. When she drops out, her friend Skye, who was expelled, convinces her to join her at Kaien Island Alternate School. Morgan’s academic achievement took a nosedive after her mom’s departure, and thanks to Skye’s influence, she gets pulled into shoplifting and partying. But as Morgan gets to know “cute Native guy” Nate, her priorities change. The more she learns about her family’s history with residential schools, the more she realizes how this legacy affects her. Spencer, who’s from the Gitxaala Nation, writes with sincerity about a “fictionalized Indigenous community,” examining how intergenerational trauma from residential schools affected families. The short, easily digestible chapters sustain an effective pace, and Morgan is a realistically drawn teen with conflicting emotions, desires, and needs. Over the course of two years, she grows and changes. The early ’90s setting allows the author to examine politics and pop culture from the perspective of a young adult finding herself at a time when residential schools were still in existence.
