Book review: Bad Cree

Reviewed by Kristin Crawford

Sometimes, a title alone is enough to make someone pick up a book. Such was the case for me with the book, Bad Cree, the debut novel by Jessica Johns. She is of Cree, English-Irish ancestry and being part Cree myself, it caught my eye.

I tend to read a lot of contemporary romance, so mystery/horror is definitely not my usual genre, but I decided to borrow it from the library anyway. Variety is the spice of life, so they say. It is quite a departure from what I typically read where the character is almost always an attractive skinny white woman who men drool over (sometimes with R-rated romance scenes). A refreshing change to have the protagonist Mackenzie not sexualized. In fact, romance is not even a factor at all as the story focuses on familial bonds, much like Disney’s Frozen.

This is a spoiler-free review. Our main character Mackenzie, a Cree woman, has moved to Vancouver from her reserve in Northern Alberta following deaths in the family. She begins to have strange dreams of the woods from back home, and she starts to bring pieces of the dream back with her. The book starts off with a bloody crow’s head coming back with her. She returns to home to her roots to help solve the mystery of her dreams and how they are connected to her sister Sabrina’s sudden death. Strong women like her Mom and Aunties unabashedly take centre stage in the story, so do the bonds with her sister Tracey and cousin Kassidy.

There is the odd Cree word thrown in. Part of the fun for me, as someone who only knows a handful of words, was seeing what I recognized: awas, Kokum, Mosum, and kisâkihitin. I even learned a new word, kepâtis (fool). An interesting note, because the chapter titles are in Cree syllabic, I am not able to read them. Also, my Kobo eReader didn’t even recognize the font, it just appeared as little boxes with question marks; however, I could see the chapters titles in the Libby app on my phone, but still unable to understand them.

A minor secondary character, Joli, who is a friend of Mackenzie, is non-binary. I’m an ally who displays my pronouns (she/her) in my work signature, so it came as a surprise to me to only have this character referred to as they/their bothered me. This was an interesting experience because it impacted my ability to imagine the character, perhaps a contributing factor is there is no physical description of the character.  It opened my eyes to how black and white my own notions of gender are, but it was a learning experience for me and hopefully for other readers as well. It was good to see depictions of the 2SLGBT+ community being included.

That would be one criticism I have of the book; the character’s appearances aren’t really mentioned.  Does the character wear glasses, do they have beauty marks, what is their hair length or colour? Basically, things to help build an image in the reader’s mind. The author’s environmental descriptions are great. I was transported from my urban shoebox apartment and could picture myself driving up the dirt reserve road or in the eerie woods. I was taken back to when I was last on a reservation many moons ago.

The book’s pacing was a little inconsistent and wouldn’t be what I would call a page turner, but still worth reading. That being said, it did kind have a vibe reminiscent of the Gothic stories like Dracula and Frankenstein. I was satisfied with the ending, unlike other books we are made to read in school that are considered “classics.” A book is meant to be an escape, and this was one I enjoyed and would recommend. It always makes me happy to see Indigenous voices being heard – we need more!