Reviews

Celia's Song by Lee Maracle

inkreads's review

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Celia’s Song by Lee Maracle and narrated by Columpa Bobb is a stunning work of literature and certainly one that can be revisited. The book is told from the perspective of Mink, a seer, a shapeshifter. She is drawn to the Village of Celia, in Nuu’Chahlnuth territory on the West coast of Vancouver

The narration by Columpa Bobb is as meditative as the narrative and I was utterly entranced. The deep empathy of the narrator to the subject matter was truly beautiful to experience

Lee Maracle has a lilting, lyrical prose with a powerful message, blending history, fantasy and speculation. I am keen to read the previous book and then re-read this as I am sure hat the experience can only be enhanced further. 

Whether audiobook or copy, this novel is exactly that, an experience and one to be treasured

Thank you to Netgalley, ECW Press Audio, the author Lee Maracle and narrator Columpa Bobb for this stunning ALC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own 

lsparrow's review against another edition

4.0

This book seemed to hold so much. There were times when I just wanted to read as fast as possible to find out what happened next, others where I just wanted to sit with the flow of the words and images and others where I didn't want to read any further for fear of having to face what came next. It is a book i feel i need to read again to full capture the story and all that it has to say.

kate56's review against another edition

5.0

We along with Mink are witnesses to pain, love, growth, healing. Peoples with few choices move in dangerous directions. Connections in ceremony lead to healing ways. "We are not lost. We are travelling in the wrong direction. Song moves us towards our humanity and right now we are moving away from it." Celia's Song allows me to see possibilities through kindness and reconnection. Lee Maracle is masterful.

michy7's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

I really enjoy this level of magic realism. The story is complex as mitochondria and the characters weave through the settings. The pace lets readers sit in the story as if we were sitting listening. The symbolism and commentary about song is so memorable that the extract thereof is an open page in my mind.

eososray's review against another edition

5.0

What a compelling story. I read another review that mentioned how 'white' they felt by the time they read the end and I have to agree. This is a whole other culture that I've ignored for years, even though it's in my own backyard, so to speak. I've only recently started to take any notice of the terrible consequences colonialism and religion has had on this community. It often amazes me what they've survived as a people and I'm impressed with their resilience and forgiveness.
This book relates some of that history and some of those consequences, often in a poignant way and more often in a terrible way. This story is heart breaking and hopeful, beautiful despite the terrible tragedy it contains.

rey397's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

sam_jordan's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Rape

areadingpotato's review against another edition

3.0

I am 100% not the target audience, as this is a novel I had to read for school. It just didn't hold me the way I would have preferred. It was beautiful most of the time, and then confusing at other times. But I primarily read Science Fiction and Fantasy, so this was potentially just a bad time for me to be reading it. Or it's just simply not for me, and never will be.
If I ever met Maracle, though, I'd love to thank her for sharing some of Sto:lo's culture and some stunning poetry. Just because it isn't for me, doesn't mean I can't appreciate what a piece of art the novel is.

kateraed's review against another edition

I couldn’t get into the many shifting narrators, especially the mink who kept interpreting the other narrators — to tell us how we’re supposed to feel about the narrative action, I guess. Abandoned.

black_girl_reading's review against another edition

5.0

This book, about so much, but for me about how the poison of colonialism, and the erasure of Indigenous People’s knowledge and songs and medicine and ways of being (and the literal genocidal erasure of Indigenous people through disease and displacement and war and patriarchal violence and child removal) creates a harm so deep it is built on centuries of ancestral trauma, is also a book of family love and healing and the way back home in a world forever changed. How’s that for the run-on sentence of a lifetime? Like some of the characters in this book, my feelings about the english language are that I don’t owe it shit. This book enriched me. It taught me that the old agreements between the spirit world and the natural world that we separate ourselves from can explain so much of the brokenness and crises of today. It spoke of how ancestral knowledge will find the dispossessed even if we can’t find it in our living Elders. And it reminded me that resistance is just being in our way, and that our way lives in our blood - it cannot be stolen. This book tells trauma tales in profoundly graphic ways that mark the spirit. This book tells healing tales that comfort a soul in grief and fear about our frightening world out of balance. This book sings honour to Indigenous women and reminds us that it is our job to listen to them and be guided by their knowledge. This novel, like all of Maracle’s work, is sorely under-appreciated, and therefore I am going to revisit Maracle’s entire catalogue of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and I’d encourage you to walk that path with me.