Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley

Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home” has been more of an idea than a place. She knows being on the run is better than anything waiting for her as a “ward of the state”. But when the sharp-eyed and kind Mr. Jameson with an interest in her case comes looking for her, Lucy wonders if hiding from her past will ever truly keep her safe.

Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious and smart. But she wants to believe Mr. Jameson and his “friend-not-friend”, a tall and fierce-looking woman who say they want to look after her. They also tell Lucy the truth her father hid from her: She is Ojibwe; she has – had – a sister, and more siblings, a grandmother who’d look after her and a home where she would be loved.

But Lucy is being followed. The past has destroyed any chance at safety she had. Will the secrets she's hiding swallow her whole and take away any hope for the future she always dreamed of?

When the past comes for revenge, it’s fight or flight.

Angeline Boulley's award-winning canon of books puts compelling characters and fast-paced action at the center of narratives rich in historical context. Read
Firekeeper's Daughter; Warrior Girl Unearthed; and Sisters in the Wind.

Why I Picked It Up

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I really enjoyed Angeline Boulley's first book, Firekeeper's Daughter, and at the time it got a lot of buzz for very necessary reasons. I feel very similarly about Sisters in the Wind, which I am very grateful for, because I was under the impression that I would somehow feel differently. (Sometimes, the second book I read by an author veers to a different vibe, and I was glad that wasn't the case here.)

I picked it up unable to sleep, kind of in a weird reading mood, in that I didn't want anything too close to anything I have been writing or thinking about recently. At the same time, I needed something fresh enough to absorb me rather than a very familiar book that I could ease into.

Realistically, I was kind of in this weird in-between, and I think this struck a good balance because it was a style and a voice and everything that I really liked and that gripped me last time, but it was an entirely new plot.

I had not realized that Firekeeper's Daughter was interconnected with these other books, although I know Angeline Boulley has made a fantastic point of writing in and around issues in her area and the tribal identity. Now that I know that I loved this one, I will probably go back and read Warrior Girl Unearthed.

Format note: I dictated this review, as it was initially a voice note, so it's a bit more conversational than my usual text!

About the Book

This one starts out a lot punchier than her debut. I also believe it may be shorter, but I have to confirm the page count.

It begins with the main character on the run from a mysterious figure. She mentions feeling like someone's watching her. She's working as a waitress or a server in this diner, and as soon as she figures out that someone has, in any way, deciphered who she is or what she might be connected to, she immediately packs up her apartment and gets everything into her backpack. She clearly goes through the motions of running away efficiently, and having the survival mentality is something that she's done a lot.

The plot later reveals that she was a foster kid, and that's a big part of it as well, but this is much more sinister than a foster kid on the run. She's in danger from a mysterious threat. At the end of chapter one, a bomb goes off in her diner and nearly kills her and another server, and she completely shatters her femur and wakes up in the hospital.

The book is partly a present narrative, in which case she is interacting with Daunis and Jamie, who we recognize from previous books, who are helping her heal and connecting her to her birth mother who she didn't know. The other piece is her flashing back to foster placements, and we're going to get a gradual picture of how she got to this point where she's been surrounded by arson, or what she might have done to invite scrutiny by the legal system.

As a note, the book takes place in 2009, which may feel like a strange choice unless you remember that Firekeeper's Daughter was similarly set in the '00s (so the later books have to follow suit.) For that: it's because Angeline Boulley wrote her debut in pieces over 10+ years, which I love.

Pacing

I thought that the tension of this all was established so well because, even though I think the book deals with a similar proportion of kind of mundane scenes that are also a part of Firekeeper's Daughter, it grapples with the tension of knowing that there's literally a bomb involved. Therefore, the plot must be of a much higher scale than what we're seeing so far (for most of the book), but relies upon a similar sense of layers of normalcy gradually receding.

The tension was established through the pacing of information delivery, and this one revolved around the knot of dread in your stomach of knowing the other shoe would drop at any point. Some currently wrestling with shortened attention spans may initially struggle to keep with the middle of the book—post-bomb, but pre-revelations—but that's worth doing and cultivating.

“People think the key to making a clean getaway is to plan every detail. It isn't. A perfect escape requires an element of chance.”

Characters & Tone

I absolutely loved the way that Angeline Boulley built Lily to be distrustful, even in her teendom. I thought her angst and the moments of breakthrough or retreat felt deeply realistic to the actual ways in which people form or erode trust, which matters when depicting a foster kid who's been repeatedly betrayed.

“My heavily winged eyeliner, multiple ear and facial piercings, and arm tattoos are supposed to discourage men from taking things any further. It's a passive form of predator avoidance.”

“I worried about being seen as ungrateful.”

“'You waste energy fighting the sad than sitting with it.'”

One small piece — I found it really difficult to remember who smaller referenced characters were, and not solely because of foster care. A few phrases of reintroduction may have gone a long way, or naming two similar characters Emily and Emma within a chapter. I read it as an eBook so it was easy enough to search and refresh myself, but I felt this could have been easily avoided, as the character names weren't connected to cultural identity, lineage, or anything else that might require them to be similar.

Emma / Emily

Boyd / Bruce

Jasmine / Joy / Jamie

Luke / Lucas

etc.

Overall Thoughts

I really, really like Angeline Boulley. I think she's brilliant, and I'm glad she's gotten her spotlight. Her debut was an award-winner, a bestseller, and a book club pick, and I still think it's underrated.

So I was so relieved and happy that Sisters in the Wind was similar to me.

And then, within its similarity, I was deeply pleased with the ways in which Sisters in the Wind felt tighter and more compressed than her first book; it's subtle, and I'd put them on similar levels of skill and tension, but I think Sisters in the Wind is more overt in a way that may make it easier to stick to, and I do think more people should read these books.

My only hesitations were the name details, and that the ending felt almost cartoonishly evil—but I loved the book overall, found it to be such a testament to Boulley's skill, and love the mix of tenderness and thrill she brings to each book. I love any writer who can make the mundane compelling, and even aspects like following Lucy to physical therapy feel engaging.

If you stick with this one, it will reward you, and I have so much to praise in the way it layers and complicates identity. From when I finished it:

“Just finished my second Angeline Boulley book—Sisters in the Wind—and damn. She is so good. Has a way of really making every book feel very full. Monotonous parts that could drag in any other plot feel resonant. I’ve really loved that in both books I’ve read by her, I’ve emerged feeling that I’ve had an entire experience; she strikes a bittersweet tone and sense of layering that I love from all my favorites. Plus, Boulley can be educational in style without being didactic? For example, I appreciate when a character can review files or spout legal jargon or whatnot without feeling like the author is using them as a mouthpiece to deliver necessary information. You can learn a lot by reading her books, but I’m aware that saying that sounds like it’ll be preachy when the book itself isn’t really. The characters’ curiosities and routines feel natural in the way anyone might go down a rabbit hole or share a fun fact, and I think that takes a lot of skill to convey! When it’s mundane, you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, so it’s always tense—and this one starts with a bang. Review to come for sure.”

For fans of:

Sadie by Courtney Summers; Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care by Claudia Rowe; A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti; etc.