This is a phenomenal debut--I can't stop thinking about it days after I finished it. It's marketed as a YA mystery/thriller, but it is so, so much more than that. It's also a literary book that is the most poetically beautiful thing I've read in awhile, and it includes so much well-deployed information about Anishinaabe culture, religion, and language (but even the most info-dumpy sections are well-motivated and gloriously well-incorporated). It's NEVER a slog, though I do think the novel is a bit long and includes so many different tones that at times I felt a bit of whiplash (particularly in the transition from pt. 1 to pt. 2). However, I think this is probably, for the most part, intentional, as it mirrors the whiplash the main character is experiencing (as well as the way violence/trauma and assault/murder interrupt the flow of life and irrevocably change things). I felt like the thriller elements weren't quite as well done as the rest, but that doesn't detract much from this tour-de-force of an epic novel (and I did not go into this expecting any 'epic' quality, but here we are).