📖Review: Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Chérie Dimaline

This novel is a tense coming-of-age story about a girl, Winifred, who is learning how to overcome the cloud of grief that surrounds her and her father.

It’s the summer of humiliations, all starting with the first day of summer break when Winifred plans to convince her best friend to be more than friends. Between the embarrassment of this interaction, her dad’s silence, and discovering a ghost in the cemetery where she lives, Winifred has a lot going on.

Dimaline’s use of imagery and melding of the supernatural with the natural create an intriguing exploration into Winifred’s past, present, and self-worth. The suspense created with the ghostly encounters are visceral and reveal Dimaline’s skill with atmosphere and describing the unknown.

This story was a unique and haunting exploration of the ongoing trauma of grief as well as the power and healing that true love and connection can bring.

My personal experience with this book was first being impressed with Dimaline’s skill as a writer, but I also found this coming-of-age story a bit confusing at times. I found some aspects of the story difficult to immerse myself into, yet I very much liked the characters and found the exploration Winifred’s past and how it affected her approach to her present fascinating. Overall, I didn’t love the book as much as I thought I might, and I found the target age of the content difficult to confirm (teen protagonist but with a lot of sexual and drug related description). However, with a well-informed reader this could be the perfect examination of the difficult issues and conflicts explored.

Thank you to @penguinrandomhouse and @NetGalley for this ebook in return for an honest review.

Unfortunately, here is another book that was more exciting in concept than execution.

Full disclosure, I have never read the author's beloved other work, THE MARROW THIEVES. But I was excited to experience their writing with this new novel that sounded a little dark, maybe even spooky, with a bit of magic thrown in. Featuring both Indigenous characters and identity, and set in my hometown, it seemed like it was all lining up to be a new favourite. And I'll admit, the early few chapters, seemed to solidify that belief.

But some of the lovely writing and turns of phrase.. well they quickly felt less present as the story went on. The characters had never really hooked me and I grew increasingly disconnected from them as time went on -- most are really unlikeable, or maybe just the loudest personas are so it just feels like more than it is? And while somewhere amongst these two hundred-and-some pages there is an exploration of mourning and grief and moving forward.. I don't know if I actually saw the journey. There were too many distractions about sex and the best friend who didn't actually feel like a best friend (so why did I care when they had a falling out) and the shitty cousin (being consistently shitty) and overall I just don't know what I should be left feeling. On the whole, it felt unbalanced and uncertain of its own tone or vibe -- never sitting too long in the humour, the valid anger, or the horror, but flipping between each too quickly to land on anything that felt solid or impactful -- and the fact that the young characters felt too old and too not-childlike didn't help matters.

The one true highlight of the story for me was Winnifred's relationship with her aunt. I really enjoyed those moments and was always looking forward to the next.

I really wish I had enjoyed this more and hope that other readers will feel for it what I wasn't able to. I will definitely be giving this author another try though because it may just have been that this story wasn't the one for me.

The cemetery vibes in this book were immaculate, very visual (though possible that I spend so much time in the cemetery that it makes sense). I also love the subtle Canadian things that were added in to create the environment. The queer love story was lovely but everything between Jake, Win, and Phil seemed unfinished and awkward. There were several points within that plot line that could have been explained better, though I understand that it was a short book. The pacing was wonderful, always wanted to keep reading to see what was happening and there were several quotes that are going in my little book! A perfect book to read with a thermos of tea in the cemetery nearest you.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline is a moody, gritty love song. I really like the tone that Dimaline’s writing style strikes. Details are fuzzy, timelines are layered and characters are so complicated and real. It was just the book that I didn’t know I needed.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Funeral Songs for Dying Girls will be published on April 4, 2023 by Penguin Random House Canada.

This book was really interesting. I loved the writing and the concept. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me. To me, it fell flat and got a little boring at times. But the plot did help me get along with it.

Unfortunately, I think I need to DNF this.

I really wanted to enjoy reading this because of the premise, and I loved Cheri Dimaline's other books, but within the first few chapters, I just found the story to be confusing and dragged on. I haven't really come across the fatphobia (yet) that's been mentioned bu other reviewers and I think it's best for me to stop before it really ramps up.

This is a tricky one for me to review. I've appreciated so many of Cherie Dimaline's books in the past, including (of course) 'The Marrow Thieves,' but this one fell a bit short. Other reviewers have commented on the bursts of fatphobia (and frankly, the premise's discussion of the MC's 'obese' dog should've tipped me off), and they really clouded my response to the novel.

I chose to DNF this book at about 52%.

The constant fatphobic remarks about other characters was a lot for me, and comparing one to Hitler really did not sit well with me.

I wanted to give this book a fair shot with the indigenous rep and OCD rep(also the main character seemed to be Autistic as well which I thought was very cool), but the above negatives mixed with poor pacing and a story that just had a hard time finding itself led me to DNF.

At 52%, I'm still not sure where the story is heading. I would advise sensitivity readers and someone to edit this books for plot holes and clean it up.

this was a really good! I liked the characters, and they were super well-developed. the plot was super cool and fun to read, and the writing was also smooth and easy to understand
highly recommend

Ok so first off, I REALLY wasn't comfortable with how much fatphobia there is in this book. This should not be happening in 2023. Especially since it is not central to the plot, nor is it used as a means for character growth. Second, this was a bit of a slog to get through... at under 300 pages, the reading experience feels like it's taking the same amount of time as reading a 500 page novel does. I'm a huge fan of Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves series (which is also YA), and both of those novels hooked me from the start and were filled with characters that I still remember years later. But that didn't happen here, Winifred was not someone I found myself wanting to invest my time and emotions in, and almost all of the other characters fade into the background.

The concept was interesting, but in the end, this book never hit its stride and I don't think it ever decided on what kind of tone it wanted to have... sometimes it was horror, sometimes it was humor, other times it was just a long monologue. I keep waiting for the storytelling magic from the Marrow Thieves books to happen again and keep getting disappointed.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and Tundra Books in exchange for an honest review.

Atmospheric and a little claustrophobic, this new YA novel by Cherie Dimaline was a compelling read, but not among my favourites of hers.

FUNERAL SONGS FOR DYING GIRLS is told from the perspective of teenaged Winifred, who lives at the edge of a cemetery in downtown Toronto with her father who looks after the land. Her mother died in childbirth and grief and loss have been constants in her short life.

We are with Winifred as she negotiates relationships at school, with family, and with a, well, with a ghost who haunts the cemetery. In some ways the ghost - who is Ojibwe (Winifred's mother was Metis but Win doesn't know what that makes her) - is a powerful stand-in for the hundreds of missing and murdererd Indigenous women and girls. In other ways, she's a catalyst for Winifred's grief and longing, searching for identity, and finding home.

Unfortunately, there's a surprising amount of fatphobia throughout. Also, like much of Dimaline's writing, she injects humour throughout, but here it creates it bit of an inconsistent tone - it's too funny to be serious sometimes and too heavy to be light at others.

What she does do here that is incredible, is give voice to the experience of adolescence and all its shame, embarrassment, overconfidence, rage, and confusion. If writing like this existed when I was 14, I would have felt very witnessed.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC copy!

Winifred is definitely different from other girls. She rolls her dog, Mrs. Dingleberry, around in a scooter. She uses tea cups to catch rain outside of her house because she likes the sounds they make. But most importantly, she lives in a cemetery with her father, who operates the crematorium and takes care of the recently deceased. Her life seems pretty normal for her until she begins to grow into a teenager and the cemetery is soon hit with rumors of it being haunted at night. Determined to find out for herself, Winifred soon discovers the secret of a lifetime.

As someone who wasn't exposed to much Indigenous literature as a child, I found myself fortunate when I requested to read this book. I sped through it and it took me on an emotional journey. I was sixteen again, discovering my first kiss, dealing with the loss of childhood through Fred's eyes, and learning how to deal with people who aren't as nice or as kind as they should be. There's also a lot of Indigenous politics and culture that I felt privileged to read about, even though this is a work of fiction. Dimaline endeared all of her characters to me and I felt often submerged by the depth of her story, only managing to scramble gasping to the surface once I managed to close the book for the night.

Despite my love of the story, I did feel that the pacing was sometimes off and that the author often didn't know whether they wanted the story to be a horror story with humorous elements or a humourous stor with horror elements and I think the book suffered a bit from that. I also thought that there could have been a little fleshing out of some of the background characters.
Despite that, I feel that this is a book that everyone, not just Indigenous girls, should read. This book has a lot of heart that should be felt.

I wanted to love this so much. The premises of this book is so good. The writing was solid, the story at its core all wonderful. I just can't get past the fat shaming in this book. Not only did it make me super uncomfortable it took me totally out of the story and being able to connect with the characters. I found it almost cruel how the author seemed to make digs about weight when it absolutely had no impact on the story.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC copy!

Winifred is definitely different from other girls. She rolls her dog, Mrs. Dingleberry, around in a scooter. She uses tea cups to catch rain outside of her house because she likes the sounds they make. But most importantly, she lives in a cemetery with her father, who operates the crematorium and takes care of the recently deceased. Her life seems pretty normal for her until she begins to grow into a teenager and the cemetery is soon hit with rumors of it being haunted at night. Determined to find out for herself, Winifred soon discovers the secret of a lifetime.

As someone who wasn't exposed to much Indigenous literature as a child, I found myself fortunate when I requested to read this book. I sped through it and it took me on an emotional journey. I was sixteen again, discovering my first kiss, dealing with the loss of childhood through Fred's eyes, and learning how to deal with people who aren't as nice or as kind as they should be. There's also a lot of Indigenous politics and culture that I felt privileged to read about, even though this is a work of fiction. Dimaline endeared all of her characters to me and I felt often submerged by the depth of her story, only managing to scramble gasping to the surface once I managed to close the book for the night.

Despite my love of the story, I did feel that the pacing was sometimes off and that the author often didn't know whether they wanted the story to be a horror story with humorous elements or a humourous story with horror elements and I think the book suffered a bit from that. I also thought that there could have been a little fleshing out of some of the background characters. Despite that, I feel that this is a book that everyone, not just Indigenous girls, should read. This book has a lot of heart that should be felt.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Punlishing for this opportunity to read rate and review this book which is out April 4,2023.

I think I might be too old for this book. I found myself annoyed the entire time by the immaturity of the characters which of course turned me off from the story.

This book follows Winifred as she fights to save the cemetery where she lives with her father. Win has lived her entire life here and can't stand the thought of leaving the only place that feels safe for her. While trying to figure out how to stay, Win actually does summon a ghost and so a friendship begins. We follow Win through multiple stages of her life through this book through a series of flashbacks and stories, but most importantly - we see Win try to navigate being a 16 year old girl in a world that's not so kind.

The writing in this book was beautiful and the descriptions of the places and people made me feel as though I was lost within the pages. Every phrase was elegant and thought out. I cannot wait to purchase this book once it gets published.

I want to thank NetGalley and Cherie Dimaline for allowing me to read this ARC before publication in exchange for an honest review.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is a difficult book to read. Not because the writing is hard, but because the concept is hard.

Winfred lives in a cemetery, because that is where her father works. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her white father keeps her ashes in a suitcase under his bed. Sometimes Win goes out wandering in the cemetary at night, and a few times she has been mistaken for a ghost. The local ghost tour wants to make the cemetery part of his stops, but Windfred has met a real ghost, while wondering, and doesn’t want her to be exploited, even though this would bring in needed money to the cemetery.

And through this all, the ghost tells her stories of her life, and asks what she is. She has no idea. She doesn’t feel she can call herself white, but she knows nothing about her mother’s side of family other than one aunt who was kind to her.

There is a lot of soul searching, and other hard bits going on. Through it all, it makes you think. Recommended for the thinking part. But if you don’t want to think what life and love is, you might not want to dive into this book.

<em>Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.</em>

Sadly i wasnt in love with this book. But its was interesting to say the least. I will read more from this author but this book wasnt for me at all.

When I read the summary I was hooked. When I started to read the novel I found myself easily distracted. There is a lot of inner dialogue, and while it's written very well it slows down the story, a lot. I will struggle to find readers for this novel because my students want something at a quicker pace. My advanced readers might enjoy this novel. It's a shame because the story is interesting, and I loved the characters, but the novel was weighted down by its slow pace.

Winifred lives at a cemetery with her father who runs the crematorium. They receive some news that the crematorium may be closed and outsourced. Hearing this Winnie runs off upset and is mistaken for a ghost. So begins a quest to save her home but in the process she brings forth an actual ghost named Phil that awakens every party of her. Phil is full of spunk but lots of anger too. She over time tells Winnie her story as a seemingly impossible romance begins to bud between them.


I enjoyed reading this however show of the writing was a little confusing. It was hard to tell when we were being taken into the past, present or to another perspective. Overall though I enjoyed the book.

Thank you #Netgalley for the chance to read this eArc.