My Thanksgiving Read: Sisters of the Lost Nation

You might like this book if you liked…

• Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
• Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson
• Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

Sisters of the Lost Nation is a novel about Anna Horn, a young native woman working in housekeeping at her tribe’s casino and resort, who has been haunted by a myth from her tribe since she was a young child. Her constant fear of the rolling head of a previous tribal leader has gotten her mocked by others in her class, and has driven a wedge between herself and her younger sister Grace, who just wants to fit in and not be associated with her weird older sister. When Grace goes missing, however, Anna sets her fears aside and starts an investigation into her sister’s disappearance.

This book touches on an incredibly important issue in modern-day America: due to systematic racism and issues with jurisdiction on tribal land, there is an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women in the Americas. Grace’s story is a common one: many young native women become victims of violence and corruption, and are never seen again. Even among the victims who are recovered, there is rarely justice done in their name. In honor of the crimes committed against native communities for hundreds of years, I wanted to bring this to your attention on Thanksgiving Day – a holiday that often obscures the reality of native people, focusing instead on a false narrative of peaceful cooperation. For more information on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement and to see how you can help, please visit their website.

Now as far as the book itself, this is certainly a character-driven narrative, and I thought the characterization of Grace and Anna was incredibly well-done. Anna is often angry and often a little aimless, and I liked how that made her feel like a real human instead of a fictional heroine. She doesn’t always have a good relationship with her family, and she spends a lot of the novel unsure of her exact goals – she just cares about Grace and wants to find her and bring her home. Throughout the story, Anna has the opportunity to grow as an individual and find self-confidence, even when she isn’t being taken seriously by others, and I loved following her journey. Grace has less time to grow as a character, but I did appreciate that she too was three-dimensional. She’s not an innocent flower – she fights with her family, gets into trouble, and makes poor choices. However, the book still avoids victim-blaming. I was never given the impression that Grace deserved her fate. In fact, some characters try to dismiss the missing girls as being troubled or “asking for it”, but the main characters aggressively reject that theory and keep pushing forward, even when it doesn’t seem like they are making any progress.

I honestly had expected a little more mythology in this book, but it ends up being more magical realism than anything else, and I did really like how that was done. The focus on the novel is on Anna and her investigation, and I never got the impression that a monster was going to end up being the cause of the girls’ disappearances. Instead, it is clear all the way through that regular humans are the cause of their disappearances. I thought that did a good job of keeping the focus on the real issue that inspired the book.

In all, I’ll give Sisters of the Lost Nation a 9 out of 10. This is a really engaging read that keeps the characters and their struggles at the heart of the story. I think most readers will get something out of it.