Winifred's mother, Mary, is a member of the Metis tribe in Canada, and her father is a white man. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her father basically crawled inside himself and died with her, though he still drew breath. He keeps half of her ashes in a suitcase under his bed, and the rest were placed in an urn and buried in the cemetery where he works and lives with Winifred. Until the year before, Winifred had her mother's sister, Roberta, to tell her stories of the Métis people and the past. Because she lives in a cemetery and is an awkward girl, she has no friends for a while, until she meets Jack. They remain close until puberty hits and Jack becomes tall and handsome, while Winifred is a mess.
The cemetery is not doing well, and unless they find a way to turn things around, Winifred's father will lose his job as a crematorium employee, and the two will lose their place to live that is so close to where Mary is buried. Over the years, tourists have seen a ghost in the cemetery, but it is really only Winifred, who has no idea she's the ghost they're talking about. When the head of a ghost tour offers to put them on the route, the owner agrees because it will make money for the cemetery. Things are looking up, until Winifred meets a real ghost, Phil, who is her age and died in 1990. She and Phil become close as Phil tells Winifred her life story, and the two bond over two of the only artists that Winifred has in her mother's album collection: Neil Young and Dolly Parton. The two get closer emotionally, and when Winifred finds out that appearing before a crowd hurts Phil and is like dying all over again, Winifred seeks to find a way to stop the tour, even if it costs her and her father a home.
Dimaline's book The Marrow Thieves won the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature and the Governor General's Literary Award. Its sequel, Hunting by Stars, was an NPR Book of the Year selection and a Good Morning America buzz pick. This standalone novel delves deeply into a young woman's heart and mind and examines what love and friendship truly are. I really loved and related to this thought-provoking book. It hooked me with the first page and kept me captivated until the last word.
Quotes
Truly, I lived a fairy-tale childhood. Like, a Grimm's fairy tale.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs For Dying Girls, p.3)
We were both aware that time was running out for us to be able to follow our own weird whims. Soon enough we'd have to conform. It was sad and exciting at the same time. We felt the panic of real life pulling at the edges of our imagination-built fortress, like a rainstorm or a monster. Yeah, more like a monster.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.34-5)
God, did I love him? If I listened to my body right now, filling up and finding new ways to knot into him, it would scream love, yes, we love this boy. But a body isn't a reliable source. It's impressionable, easily influenced, too mechanical to trust with emotion.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.43)
They saty that loving yourself is an act of rebellion.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.45)
She took enough time with her makeup that it made you suspicious.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.56)
Sometimes I took old issues from there for school projects and just out of general interest in things like Cosmo's sex advice or Hunters Inc. wilderness survival tips--subjects I found related to one another in many bizarre ways.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.73)
If one of Chess's tourists came by now, they might report a childish spirit, a tantrum ghoul. Or maybe a hysterical woman, something dangerous. At sixteen, it could go either way.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.107)
It almost killed her, but then she remembered that there were many days in a life and not all of them would be so painful, so she kept moving forward.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.112)
Puberty was a fucking horror show. I got tall and ugly and all my underwear was stained. I hated it. Hated the boobs that started to grow and then stopped growing--just big enough to get noticed, just small enough to get teased. Shit or get off the pot! I'd yell at them in the bathroom mirror flecked with toothpaste, because apparently everyone needs to watch themselves brush their goddamned teeth.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.113)
The last thing a hopeless romantic needs is hope.
Cherie Dimaline (Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, p.204)
Link to ThriftBookshttps://www.thriftbooks.com/w/funeral-songs-for-dying-girls/37264658/?resultid=bb86558a-ec9a-43d4-bf4e-2600e2610f1c#edition=65270104&idiq=58399165
No comments:
Post a Comment