BAD CREE is a book about grief, family, community, female bonds, and colonialism disguised as a horror novel. Was it creepy and spooky with a terrifying monster? Yes, but it speaks to so much more of the human experience than just that. I'm really looking forward to more work by Jessica Johns.

If you, like me, are upset by crow deaths/portrayal of crows as evil, just keep reading. You won't regret it.

I finished this book over the weekend and the introduction in the galley speaks of how Jessica Johns was warned by an instructor not to write about dreams. I’m glad she didn’t listen.

Johns pulls the reader inside these dreams, inside the world of a young Cree woman who is battling monsters in both her sleeping and waking life. The story is full of mystery and constantly whispering horror as the protagonist, Mackenzie, attempts to unravel what is happening in her dreams and what they mean. At the same time she must face her own fears that she is a bad person, a bad Cree, a bad family member.

This one is a slow burn and, although the subject matter is very different, the interior nature of the narrative juxtaposed with the huge life events in the storyline made me think of The Unpassing by Chia-Chia Lin. (Which you know I adore, so that says a lot about this book.)

There are so many lines I absolutely identified with while reading; Johns puts words to feelings and experiences so deftly. She covers loss and grief, growing up and familial relationships, feeling isolated and alone in very familiar ways. She also creates such a solid sense of place and experience as a Cree woman in modern Canada, an indigenous voice the literary world needs to hear more.

I’ve been sort-of purposely vague here because I want you to read this one for yourself. Experience the ups and downs alongside Mackenzie. I’d love to hear what you think when you do.

Mackenzie is a dreamer. She’s so good at it that objects from her dreams follow her into reality. Like a severed crow’s head for example. She knows deep down that her dreams are trying to tell her something about the death of her sister, but what exactly? She must go home to High Prairie in Northern Alberta, a place she has been avoiding, the only place where she can find answers.

Strong female characters and Cree ancestry and lore drive this story. It has a whole lot of depth and is not your typical horror novel. Johns’ descriptions will leave you breathless.

If you are looking for a book by an Indigenous author and/or enjoy slow burn, atmospheric books that give you chills, this is definitely for you! A strong debut from Johns and I look forward to her next book!

I don’t read much horror, but I love exploring different cultures and mythologies. I was pleased to have the opportunity to review this novel by a Néhiyaw author that incorporates Cree culture and lore.

I like the writing style, which is an immersive first person present tense stream of consciousness that works well for such a suspenseful story. The downside is that Mackenzie’s thought process and decisions can be frustrating at times. So often, she thinks of a better course of action and then reacts habitually anyway. But perhaps some of my frustration is because I see that same behavior in myself at times. How often do we think about what we ought to do and then act otherwise?

The heart of this story is an exploration of grief and family bonds, which I found very relatable. I loved Mackenzie’s friends and family. It was heartwarming to see them grow closer and work together to overcome challenges, both mundane and supernatural.

The story is centered in Indigenous women’s experiences, which I found refreshing. I also appreciated the inclusion of LGBT characters. Note that this book includes swearing and depictions of alcohol and tobacco use. If none of that will bother you and you enjoy horror or supernatural suspense, then I recommend this novel.

Thanks to Doubleday for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley, which I volunteered to review.

First five star read of 2023! I can’t wait to recommend this one to people. What a remarkably unsettling debut novel.

I definitely resonated with the idea of the importance of dreams, their meanings, and significance within cultures. I appreciated the storytelling and symbolism, but ultimately this wasn't a great fit for me.

"Maybe dreaming is just a series of small deaths."

Author Jessica Johns hooks you up to a pair of jumper cables and gives it the gas for a great jump start beginning for readers eager for the supernatural horror the book description teases. Heart racing, blood pumping - there's no better way for a horror novel to start, in my opinion.

Once we get past that initial rush and fall into the book's regular pacing, it slowed down a little too much for me. I loved Mackenzie's huge family - I would have loved to have spent more time getting to know them a touch more. Honestly, I'd read a whole book on them alone. I loved reading about the Aunties and their grandmother's sayings, I loved the loud hustle and bustle when they were together - I could feel the love and warmth rolling off the pages in waves. I also enjoyed the tidbits of Cree beliefs, customs and traditions that were sprinkled into the narrative. Again, I would have loved more! Without getting into spoilers, there were some things mentioned that I did end up on the internet researching myself, just for personal education and to better understand what our characters were dealing with. Pretty scary stuff....that's actual. That took this one up a level for me with that nugget of lore.

There were a lot of convenient plot devices that ate at me and stayed on my mind long enough to pull me out of the story and distract me. I'd read something and 10 pages later, would still be thinking "There's no way in this particular day and age that x would happen like that." I can suspend my belief when it comes to the horror and supernatural elements, but the mundane everyday stuff....I have a little bit harder time with.

I had a love/hate relationship with Mackenzie's coming-of-age story. There was some great growth and development, but again, the pacing just took too long to get us there. There were so many times Mackenzie would think of acting on an emotion, only to decide not to. So many times.

All that aside, this book had an excellent premise and I will absolutely read more by Jessica Johns - especially if Johns continues in the vein of Indigenous horror/supernatural genre.

Special thanks goes to Doubleday Books for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Content warnings: death of a sibling, brain hemorrhage, discussion of alcoholism, blood, gore, violence against animals (birds, the dog does not die), drowning. generational trauma

Mackenzie lost her older sister, Sabrina, several years prior in what seemed like a natural cause. But recently, horrible nightmares have been plaguing her sleep, including items being pulled from the dreamscape into the real world. Turning to her remaining sister, cousin, mother, and aunties for help, perhaps she can quiet the supernatural disturbance once and for all.

Johns masterfully uses dreams as both a narrative and a plot device to tell the story of trauma both personal and generational with a focus on finding support in one’s family and community for respite and healing.

At its core, this is a book about grief and regret, and how self-isolating under the false pretense of healing can lead to more problems than not. Johns does not shy in depicting the ways it can put its claws in people, regardless their interrupted sleep. The theme of finding healing through community and family shines strong here, though it doesn’t shirk away from the thorns everyone else carries on their own healing journeys. I loved the dynamic between Mackenzie and the women in her life, but also as importantly, her relationship with Joli whom she befriended upon moving away from home. No person is an island, and even when the supernatural tries to put wedges between Mackenzie and those she cares about, there is fierce love in the pushback.

In terms of the scares, the imagery is disturbing in a way that’s both dreamlike and incredibly grounded. Safety becomes twisted and taking control of oneself in a dreamlike state seems impossible. Johns does such cool things working with dreams as a literary device in introducing new details and providing further context for everyone’s hurt, not just Mackenzie’s. I’d almost go so far as to say that it’s the primary vehicle of the plot, but I’ll refrain from saying much else because that would be spoilers.

A treat for folks who enjoy their horror to explore the uneven path of healing from grief and folkloric scares, definitely not one to miss when building a horror to-be-read list.

In this debut supernatural thriller, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her back home, where a wheetigo (windigo) preys on the family's grief for her grandmother and her sister. Mackenzie has tried to run away from her family and their losses but her nightmares have started to bleed into reality and she returns home to relearn the strength of family, community, and connection to the land. "That's the best and worst thing about being connected to everything: you are a part of it all, but you can't choose what gets sent out into the world. Or what can find you." This is a supernatural horror thriller that explores generational trauma, touching on themes of grief and family and the devastation wrought on native lands by industrial greed and negligence. An impressive debut by Jessica Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta, Canada.

[Thanks @DoubledayBooks and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

Mackenzie leaves home (Alberta CA) after the death of her Kokum (grandmother) and moves to Vancouver. Her sister Sabrina dies while she is living in Vancouver and she doesn't return home for the funeral. When she wakes up one morning after a particularly real dream (I'd call it a nightmare 🤷🏻‍♀️) she thinks she is still holding the head of a crow. But, when she blinks it disappears. CREEPY! I loved it!
After a few more horrible nightmares she decides to tell her family and ultimately decides to go home for their help. When she arrives her family welcomes her but not necessarily with open arms which I think intensified her dreams. Again, I loved it!!
Add in the Weetigo (basically a supernatural creature that can shape shift into a person and make can capture someone's attention and make them do terrible things) and I knew I needed to finish the book as quickly as possible.
I'm not familiar with the Cree culture so that was a wonderful added bonus. It made me Google and research their culture. I love learning! I'm definitaly seeking out another Indigenous book or two this year!

Honestly, what I was expecting is not what I got with this book. I'm totally okay with it. I was expecting more horror but this was more creepy. Does that make sense? Good. I knew it would 🤣🤣 I think maybe that is why the reviews as either love or dislike this book? 🤷🏻‍♀️

On the scale of Buy, Borrow, Bargain, Bud or Bust I'm rating this one as Bargain or Borrow

Read This Book If:
you want to read a book by an indigenous author
you like books set in other countries and/or cultures
you want to be creeped out a bit not a whole lot
you like books with tight knit families

This was a surprising read for me - it's a Canadian fiction (but horror) and horror isn't always my genre (because I'm little bit of a wimp!) This book starts with a bang (not a spoiler it's in the description), but our main character wakes up with a crow's head in her hand after dreaming of her deceased sister, so we dive in to the character's dream past but also her finally travelling back to her family home and dealing with what is happening. While this is a horror story and it does get creepy as they dive in to what happened, it also has some discussion on greed,, family and this family is truly coming together not only to deal with the death of her sister as well as her kokum. It does take a little bit to get things moving as our main character is coming to terms with going home, but then you can't put it down!

Fairly decent read. A bit muddled at times but worked out overall. Not scary or creepy, kind of melodramatic. The ending seemed rushed.

From the very first pages I was pulled into this story. This book is full of female characters who all have a part to play. The Cree family are all going though their own grief. I enjoyed the elements of community and culture as well. The author provides context for the handful of Cree words throughout the text which I enjoyed. This book was a unique supernatural horror that I wasn’t anticipating and very much enjoyed!!

In the introduction, debut author Jessica Johns says that Bad Cree was born out of a comment from her writing professor, about how writing dream sequences were boring. Johns set out to prove him wrong. And succeeded.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a crow in her hand, she realizes that she has brought another object back to reality with her from the dream world. She keeps dreaming about her recently deceased sister, Sabrina, and reluctantly tells her family about the dreams, as they are getting more and more troubling.

I absolutely loved Mack, our protagonist, and her interesting and very believable family dynamic. All of the sisters, mothers, aunts, and cousins were very much their own characters with their own personalities. Joli, her coworker, is probably the only nonbinary Native character I've ever read, but it made me sad to see that they weren't included more in the story. The dream sequences felt cinematic, and I could completely picture the lake and the surrounding woods everytime Mack went back there, either in her waking or sleeping mind. I feel strange saying that a book with so much death and grief was a delight to read, but Bad Cree was truly a delight.

I'm certain that BAD CREE will draw a lot of comparisons to Erika Wurth's WHITE HORSE, another recent horror novel featuring a young Indigenous woman plagued by terrifying dreams and attempting to unravel the painful mystery of a lost family member all while struggling to navigate increasingly complicated relationships with her friends and family. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that BAD CREE will shine in that context.

This is a shame, as I do think Johns' debut has quite a lot to offer its readers! The overall voice and tone of the novel are gripping, and Mackenzie's relationships with her family members are so beautifully rendered. The nightmarish moments are suitably scary and compelling, even if the ultimate plot payoff isn't quite as big as I'd hoped. Ultimately, I found the pacing of the novel to fall apart in the last third -- it wrapped up just when I wanted it to explore more deeply. That being said, it was a debut novel I could not put down, and I will certainly keep an eye out for Johns' next title!

I just could not get through this one. The review copy I received did not have any chapters or sections broken up. Not sure if the book is meant to be that way or not. My OCD just couldn’t let me keep going.

I am going to be honest with yall, I maybe back in my horror-thriller era because of this one. I was super nervous with the page count that it may have been too short going in, but somehow Jessica Johns makes every moment count. For this being just a debut, I am dying for more.

Miigwech to NetGalley and the publisher (Doubleday) for giving me an e-arc of this novel!

<i>Bad Cree</i> follows MacKenzie, a young Cree woman, who awakens from a dream one night holding a severed crow's head. What follows is her journey back home to confront her (and her family's) grief and the settler-colonial violence enacted on her home.

I loved this book. From the beginning, I was hooked. I loved MacKenzie as a main character, and saw myself in so many of the decisions that she made. Her relationship with her family and the way the novel depicts healing and kinship meant so much to me. They all felt like such realistic and well rounded characters, and it was great to see how strong they were in their own ways.

I also absolutely loved the way this novel progressed--it's so good and something I've been wanting to see from an Indigenous perspective for years now. The tie in with the earth and her homeland was masterfully done.

I cannot wait to own a copy of this book.

A slow burn paranormal horror story. It had a lot of great social commentary about being a Cree, and how their people are treated. How monsters feed on their pain and sadness. But it was so very slow, and heavily focused on characters and family building it didn't built the scare factor for me as I hoped it would. Those that love deep character builds and slow burns will enjoy this story.

"In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.

Night after night, Mackenzie's dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina's untimely death: a weekend at the family's lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too - murder of crows stalks her every move around the city, she wakes up from a dream of drowning throwing up water, and gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina - Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.

Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams - and make them more dangerous.

What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina's death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?"

What if your dreams could kill you?