Fireweed follows the story of Jenny, a woman living in Prince George, Canada who is often on her own, as her husband is gone for work most of the time. It’s a first pov of Jenny and how she grew up wanting this life she is currently living- but dreaming and living are two different things. Jenny is lonely, she hasn’t been able to get pregnant while her friends are popping out babies left and right. She feels like there isn’t any sustenance to her life- until she finally starts paying attention to her neighbour, Rachelle. Jenny had avoided Rachelle like the plague before, because indigenous women in Prince George aren’t worth getting to know. Jenny and Rachelle end up striking up a friendship and are getting to know each other better, that is, until Rachelle mysteriously disappears one day. It is now Jenny’s mission to figure out what happened to her friend.


The story starts off with a missing white girl, whose disappearance is publicized all over Prince George. Beth had the empathy of many, strangers just wanting this girl to come home safe. But when Rachelle, an indigenous woman goes missing, Jenny realizes that people aren’t reacting with the same urgency.

You see the racial disparity between a white woman and indigenous woman going missing and how the public and police like to just sweep their lives away without a thought.

Jenny as a character is a bit frustrating but I think Fireweed gives a great POV of how close minded people are. You go through her process of trying to shine light on the disappearance of her friend but she is met with roadblocks at every turn, she can’t help wondering why people don’t seem to believe her.

I felt that the book didn’t wrap up how I wanted it to, but I think that was maybe the point the author was trying to prove. Indigenous people go missing all the time and the more privileged lives just keep on going.

~ Thank you @netgalley and @astrapublishinghouse for the free ARC. ~

Overall, I enjoyed this book and I think it nearly succeeded in doing what it set out to do . The unreliable narrator with flawed motivations for "investigating" the disappearance of her neighbor was a compelling perspective. The premise was bleak, but somehow Jenny's own biases - and blindness to the ways in which she was also marginalized at times - filtered some of the despair that I think the reader was supposed to feel. Rachelle's clearly not coming back, something bigger is at play, but Jenny keeps us almost optimistic that Rachelle (or Rachelle's body) will be found eventually and that the cops can be trusted to investigate the missing woman. While I feel like Haddad maintained the perfect balance for Jenny's feelings throughout the story, true to form Jenny turned a blind eye (unknowingly or not) to so many wrongs that eventually the final act was a little muffled.

Definitely an interesting experience, and I think this has the potential to be an amazing audiobook! I think a talented narrator could really nail the vibe that this book was trying to pull off.

I had such high expectations for this book, but I was severely let down. I was looking forward to reading a book that addressed the discrimination of native women and the fact that law enforcement often overlooks crimes against them. I felt like this book had too many random details about Jenny's life and they really took away from the overall plot. I found that the random details were boring me to death at some points. The ending also felt very unsatisfying, but I also think that may have been the point. There was no way Jenny would solve Rachelle's disappearance or get the police to listen to her and maybe that's the way it needed to end.

I do think that maybe this book was not my style and that some people will love it. At times I felt like DNFing this book, but decided to give it the good ole college try.

The writing in this book is hauntingly melancholic as it follows a frustratingly naïve protagonist. Watching Jenny slowly descend into the realization that she is dealing with a broken system is heartbreaking and unnerving. I really enjoyed the ongoing motif of Fireweed, a plant that symbolizes new beginnings, always present alongside Jenny's continuous growth as she learns--or rather unlearns--the racist assumptions that have been embedded throughout her life. I wish we had some more time with Rachelle's character though, maybe even a chapter or two from her perspective, though I guess the point of her limited appearance was so the reader felt as isolated from the character as Jenny did. Overall, a really moving story and encapsulates the prevalent issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, along with the overwhelming racism that allows this issues like this to persist.

Fireweed delves into a wide range of topics, from racism against Indigenous peoples to domestic violence and infertility. With so many topics, though, I felt like the writing was a bit disjointed and would have benefitted from focusing more heavily on the underlying racism plot. Additionally, I felt that this was less of a thriller and more of a character study of the protagonist, so I think it would have benefitted from different marketing. Overall, it was a slower read with some poignant introspection and observations of racism in a small town, but it is most likely not one I will recommend.

Fireweed is a book that explores long overdue themes of racism towards indigenous peoples. Besides that it also addresses important issues like gendered violence, infertility, and classism. However, as I read, I found that the story tried to tackle too many themes at once, which made the writing feel scattered at times. Additionally, the interesting part of the plot that hooked me while reading the blurb took too long to begin in my opinion, which made it hard for me to stay engaged. While I appreciate the ambition behind the work, I ultimately decided not to finish the book once I got to 20%. I quickly discovered that I was more interested in the ‘thriller’ aspect rather than a character study of the protagonist and/ or the closer examination of class and race privilege within this provincial setting and therefore decided that this book was not for me. Nonetheless, I encourage others to explore it for themselves, as it may resonate differently with other readers. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

I thought this book covered a very important subject that isn't seen enough in literature. I wish there had been a little bit more development for the main character. It feels like we were getting there but she reverts back a bit at the end. The prose moved me forward really well, however, it felt confusing and jumbled at points.

This thrilling read takes place in Prince George, Canada, where Jenny Hayes, a housewife, shares a fence with Rachelle, the only First Nations woman in the neighborhood. Despite their differences, Jenny volunteers to babysit Rachelle's girls to suppress her judgment of their living conditions. Only Beth's case receives attention when two women, Beth Tremblay and Rachelle, disappear. Jenny takes it upon herself to investigate Rachelle's disappearance, questioning the police and the Métis people on the Rez. The novel challenges the mythologization of marginalized communities and the consequences of privileging one value system over another.

Sadly, I struggled to get into this read. I don't know if it was because the formatting threw me off or what. The description was very promising, but this read fell short for me. I did like how this read touched on a topic that is so important. People get prioritized based on their skin tones all the time. Jenny did what she knew was right and advocated for Rachelle.

In Fireweed, the protagonist is a bored housewife who starts a misguided investigation into her First Nations neighbors' sudden disappearance. What starts as a well-meaning effort quickly spirals into a series of misguided actions that reveal more about the protagonist's own limitations than they do about the disappearance.

Set in 2001 in Prince George, BC, the novel offers a stark portrayal of a smaller rural working-class community. As someone who grew up in the rural prairies during that time, I found the depiction both accurate and occasionally difficult to digest. The community’s 'white trash' ethos and narrow-minded views, including prevalent racism towards First Nations people, are portrayed with a raw honesty that underscores the novel's critique of systemic issues.

One of the novel's strengths is its exploration of how women’s experiences of violence and disappearance are influenced by their class and race. The contrast in responses between the disappearance of a white woman versus that of the protagonist’s Indigenous neighbor highlights the deep-seated biases in law enforcement, media, and community reactions. The book’s portrayal of these dynamics, alongside other relationships and the mistreatment of women, underscores the systemic nature of these issues.

Ultimately, Fireweed serves more as a character study of both the protagonist and the community rather than a deep dive into the disappearance itself. The protagonist, with her naivety and sheltered perspective, can be frustrating to read. While I wished for a more in-depth exploration of the disappearances and the accompanying injustices, the novel’s focus on the status quo—where women continue to go missing with little change—resonates as a poignant commentary.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

About 25% into this my spidey DNF senses were tingling, by 32% I was barely holding on. Thankfully, a review marked 'spoiler' had appeared since I'd checked last... After learning how the book ends, I just couldn't put myself through reading any further. I try my hardest to avoid doing this with NetGalley approvals, but this one I couldn't justify.

Perhaps a dodged bullet, I won't be giving this a star rating as I don't feel like 32% in is far enough to make it a fair judgement. (Since NetGalley forces a rating I chose 3/5)

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Lauren Haddad, and publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!}

Fireweed follows Jenny, a young Canadian woman whose husband is often gone for weeks at a time for work. In her spare time between infrequent work shifts, Jenny begins speaking a bit to Rachelle, the only First Nations Woman in the neighborhood. Just as the two women begin to strike up a relationship, Rachelle vanishes, and Jenny is determined to find out what happened.

This book felt more like a study of Jenny as a person than anything else. I don't think I liked Jenny, but I found her an interesting and fairly well-written character, and that's what sucked me into this book. She's a naive and ignorant white woman who's spent her whole life in the industrial town of Prince George. From the very beginning, the book is very upfront with how everyone in the town views First Nations people with Jenny's friends openly disparaging Rachelle. The book is written in first person, so we get to see everything Jenny's thinking and feeling while she goes on her journey. Her naïveté, combined with a healthy dose of crime TV, makes her overly confident in her ability to solve Rachelle's disappearance. She does some questionable things in her search for justice, but as the summary says, she really is misguided. She spends the whole book throwing herself at the mystery, and many of her assumptions about her hometown are challenged.

I also felt like the setting was very clearly described. I'm an American with only middling knowledge of Canada, so I wasn't familiar with Prince George at all before reading Fireweed. Haddad does a good job setting the scene with all the talk of the industry and environment, as well as the descriptions of all the characters. When I saw Haddad's bio at the end of the book and saw she'd written extensively about Prince George, the incredibly detailed description made a lot of sense. Also, as someone who has family in a small town in Missouri with that "white trash" air wafting around, the vibe of the setting and the people who lived there felt distantly familiar.

The ending has me feeling a little conflicted. Everything ties up quite neatly, but Jenny has just gone right back to where she was when the novel started. I can see it as an allegory for how women both Native and white continue to go missing, and nothing truly gets done to stop more women from going missing, just like how Jenny went on her journey searching for Rochelle only to return to her old life, Rachelle occasionally crossing her mind. The world keeps on spinning, unchanged. I find the ending unsatisfying, but I guess it makes sense for Jenny's character.

My main critique would be that the writing feels a little unclear at times. Sometimes something would happen, and it felt like some of the key details weren't provided until later when Jenny was reflecting on the events. Other times, Jenny comes to conclusions without providing explanation to how she reached that conclusion. It wasn't bad enough that I couldn't follow the plot, but it did leave me scratching my head every now and again.

Overall, I enjoyed Fireweed. The writing style was easy to get immersed in, and the premise was intriguing, and I never felt bored while reading this.

Rating 3.5/5, rounding up to 4

Content warnings for racism, sexism, sexual assault, mentions of domestic abuse