Katherena Vermette

A stunning debut novel by multi-award-winning poet Katherena Vermette about a multigenerational indigenous family dealing with the fallout of a shocking crime.

The Break

MacKenzie Hamon

Such a fantastic debut novel. It has been a long time since I started reading a book and actively thought about going home to finish it - wondering about the characters, the plot, etc. while trying to carry on with my everyday activities. An important, moving, powerful story that everyone should read.

That being said, the only reason I didn't rate the book five stars is because I found myself stumbling over the text more than once owing to grammatical errors and/or repetitive words, which pulled me out of an otherwise captivating read.

Maggie Gordon

I must admit that I am a bit torn about this novel. The prose is beautiful, captivating even. The story is tragic, but also very truthful. The traumas and pains that one sees in these pages are real. They happen every day. This was a powerful tale of colonialism and intergenerational trauma. There is most certainly a core of hope, but it is small. Perhaps this is what bothered me. I wanted to see a vision of something better, but this was a photo of the current day. There's resilience, but the deep hurts and terrors of the present. I must also say this book was totally robbed on Canada Reads :(

sophie <3

Read this for school but still thoroughly enjoyed it and made me rethink a lot of things

Fraser Simons

This is wildly amazing and also taxing and draining to read at times. What presents as a whodunit crime becomes an exploration of the socioeconomic conditions that would instigate the brutal crime. 

There are a lot of content warnings for this, but most predominantly is sexual assault and harm to a 13 year old girl. So, you best be in the mind set for that. While the actual crime is not depicted in extreme detail, it’s centering is reframed from a lot of different perspectives, from privileged racist cop guy to a mother who reports the assault and has to comfort her children shortly after. 

It is probably the smartest use of a whodunit, as it directly connects the reader to problems in Canada, such as racism and musing indigenous women. And it does so in such a way that it points to nearly every factor why this could happen. People often weaponize racism as a form of dehumanizing indigenous people, especially on reserves, and cite events like this (as if things like this didn’t happen more often in urban areas regardless, but I digress) as “reasons” and the “problems” on reservations. This completely exposes the generalization and then educates the reader. 

It’s really just absolutely stunning, if you’ve got the stomach for it. I will say, I think the narrator does a good job but the themes and characterizations would come together a lot sooner for me had I been reading it, I think.

Anna Campbell

** spoiler alert **
           Although I found it hard to keep track of the family tree, I really liked all the characters in this book. None of them developed much, but we got to learn their stories. The violence was so awful and horrifying, but I think it was an important story to learn about. The racism they faced was subtle and terrible, which I need to know happens in my country too. And I always enjoy learning a little bit more about Aboriginal culture.

Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2018 Crime Book of the Month, Sunday Times, February 2018 'A tough, close-up look at a side of female life that's often hard to acknowledge: the violence girls and women sometimes display towards other girls and women ... An accomplished writer who will go far.' - Margaret Atwood Stella, a young Métis mother, lives with her family by the Break, an isolated strip of land on the edge of their small Canadian town. Glancing out of her window one winter's evening Stella spots someone in trouble; horrified, she calls the police. But when they arrive, no one is there, scuff marks in the compacted snow the only sign anything may have happened. What follows is a heartbreaking and powerful tale of a community in crisis as the people connected to the victim, a young girl on the edge of a precipice, begin to lay bare their stories leading up to that fateful night. From Lou, a social worker grappling with the end of a relationship, to Cheryl, an artist mourning the premature death of her sister. And from Phoenix, a homeless teenager released from a youth detention centre with no one to turn to, to Officer Scott, a Métis policeman caught between two worlds. Through the prism of one extended, intergenerational family, Vermette's urgent story shines a light on the power, violence and love shared between women of all cultures, creeds and ages.

The powerful tale of love, loss and violence, endorsed by Margaret Atwood

Jaclyn Margaret

devastating and heart-wrenching and difficult and important

A Quiet Little Library

4.5
Firstly, I am very glad I read this for class because it made me see the book through an analytical lense, and I was able to notice so many intricacies in her writing. I enjoyed reading this book all the way through, and while there are many heavy topics dealt with throughout the story, it is all told with such care, and oftentimes softness. The end had me crying which almost always creates a new favourite for me, and I loved that it felt so realistic. Please read this, and please pay attention because there is so much to find in here. (Hint, pay attention to the snow that seems to creep into and cover every crevice of this book.)

The Break

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