Reviews

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

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meghanhudson's review

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dark emotional reflective fast-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

3.5

tsoutham's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted 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

5.0

Cherie Dimaline is a master. Her writing is like chocolate melting in the mouth or a river running clear! You cannot help but savour it whether its your tongue (chocolate) or your toes (river)!

Here's some narrative from the main character Winnifred who says: “I wanted to love myself so hard I felt whole period I wanted to love myself so big I felt in tuned. I wanted to love so beautiful there was more to my belonging than just the curve and grip of a hammock holding me or the ways in which I could touch myself to gasping. And sometimes in this love, it was more than just me. Sometimes there was Jack.” P. 99

Yet, might you get the idea that this is a love story, it is, but a love story with self!

I have to give you some more from the book. Take this as some advice on self-soothing:

“There are ways that we comfort ourselves that researchers say go back to the womb, that time before time, when all we had was ourselves and A thunderous heart in the deep, red sky. Without the standard issue womb, with all its design benefits and cushy interior, I sought reassurance in the ridges and curves of unorthodox geometry. I had to bend legs and hold a bulbous head and rock myself to sleep period I had nothing to hold me back but the even numbers of my mother's heart. This is how i sat now, folded into girl shaped origami in a wooden chair, hearing the list of phil's death march. Hands each wrapped around the opposite elbow, my stomach pulled back into a bone ringed bowl, shoulders lifted to earlobes. Two, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12. I remained quiet, mouth too full of multiples to open in this room.” P. 437

This book is also about reclaiming indigeneity. Winnifred's relationship with her aunt is strong.

Her grandmother Roberta says “it's not that this part of the shore is much different than any other part of the shore. It's because the water here is where my grandmother's are. Their bones are rubbed smooth here. Their songs are held under the rocks at the bottom. Their hair is tangled in the weeds along the side over by Lang leitz place. That's what makes it special it's us, after all.”

And then Winnifred says “I always thought I suffered from a kind of acute homelessness because I didn't have that land, because I'd never walked that stretch of shore. But then, she worked so hard to make sure I had it in the stories, that I had us: Roberta, merry, faith, all of us. She spent whole afternoons drawing maps in my head while also trying to force pieces into the puzzle where they didn't go until I took them out of her hand.” Pp. 436-7

This is a character that can break free of her self-imposed boundaries.