The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Narrator: Meegwun Fairbrother
Published by Kobo Originals
Published on 7 March 2018
Genres: Dystopian, United States, Young Adult
Format: Audiobook
Source: my local library
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In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories."

There’s not a lot for me to say about this book for two reasons: One is that I DNF’d it at 35%, and two, I DNF’d it at 35% because NOTHING HAPPENED.

I normally hate saying that nothing happened in a book because something always does, but seriously, all that had happened one entire third into this novel was that a rag tag group of hunted survivalists walked around (and had been doing so for two years at this point) and found a hotel to stay in.

I can’t even remember any of the characters’ names, that’s how utterly bored I was.

I didn’t want to DNF, because the rag tag group of survivalists was made up of purely Native American characters, but DAMN. This book doesn’t get a free pass just because it stars oppressed minorities.

Also, the plot revolved around harvesting these characters for bone marrow, which ultimately killed them, which didn’t make sense at all because in the current world we actually have the technology to extract bone marrow without killing people and also why would you kill them when they can grow the marrow back and you can ultimately farm them rather than running out of a finite resource?

Look, this question may be answered later in the book, but ultimately it wasn’t what I was looking for. I understand it was making a point about the oppression, enslavement, exploitation and murder of indigenous groups of people and their culture for the continued domination of rich white folk, but it wasn’t for me. If that’s what you’re looking for, I recommend Dread Nation by Justina Ireland.

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