Bad Cree

Mackenzie has been having bad dreams, and she’s convinced that she’s also somehow bringing items from her nightmares and into the real world, although they disappear as she opens her eyes. When her dead sister starts appearing in the dreams and the dream items she brings into our world turn…dark (the ripped-from-its-body head of a raven, for example), she really starts to worry. She decides to return home to her Cree mother, aunties, and cousins for the first time in years, hoping they’ll be able to help her get rid of the nightmares, but what she finds is a family still steeped in grief at the loss of her sister. And clearly something supernatural and unfriendly is taking advantage of that grief. But supernatural talents run in show more her blood, and the women in her family combine their strengths to fight back.

Good writing, good characters, cool story. The horror element is light in nature, so don’t let that scare you away, so to speak. And the thing that pushed this over into the category of one of my best reads of the year so far is that there are essentially no male characters here; it’s a story 100% about women helping women work through pain and grief, share joys, and just, in general, live their lives with no thoughts spared for men in pretty much any sense. show less

The blurb for this book on the Canada Reads website did not cause me to think I would enjoy it: "a horror-infused novel that centres around a young woman named Mackenzie, who is haunted by terrifying nightmares and wracked with guilt about her sister Sabrina's untimely death." I have never enjoyed horror fiction and I usually pass on them. However, since it was going to be part of the Canada Reads debate I put a hold on it at my library. Maybe other people were turned off by the blurb because I got it quite quickly. To my surprise, I quite enjoyed the book and I hope Jessica Johns will write more.

Mackenzie grew up in Alberta but left her home and family to go to Vancouver. She is in regular communication with her mom and aunties and show more cousins but she hasn't been back home in three years. She didn't even go home when her sister Sabrina died suddenly. Now she is having terrifying dreams about her sister. In one she saw her sister lying on the ground in a forested area with crows all over her, tearing at her flesh. In the dream Mackenzie killed one of the crows and as she woke up in her bed she could feel the crow's head in her hands and blood covering her. Yet there was nothing there when she tore back the covers. She is finding it difficult to cope with her job at Whole Foods. Finally, she asks her manager for time off so she can go back home. Unfortunately, she keeps having the dreams even back in her parents' house. She finally tells her family about the dreams and they start to see if they can help her. Her Mom and aunties talk to all the elders around and they come to the conclusion that the Sabrina in the dream is a whetigo, a spirit that shows up when bad things start happening and, like a vampire, takes over humans. The elders think that the whetigo started showing up when the oil companies came to the area and disturbed the earth. Once the oil boom was done and the oil workers left the area it started to attack the indigenous people. Sabrina was one of the whetigo's victims and the whetigo is now using her likeness to attract the rest of the family.

While the book centres on Mackenzie, it is her whole extended family that captivated me. No-one was ever abandoned by this family.They loved and hugged and fed and helped everyone. It seemed like some one was always in the kitchen cooking up a meal or baking or playing cards or telling stories. So,for me, this wasn't horror, this was a story about family and love. show less

"The worst part about missing someone is when you forget for a second that they're gone. When you remember, the pain hits you harder than before. Forgetting can feel like a gift, but a lot of the time it's just hard lying in wait."

I'm still ruminating on how beautiful of a story Bad Cree by Jessica Johns was despite it being "horror". I love how it talks about grief, as something that hides in the body and never quite leaves. Grief comes in waves and sometimes lays roots in the land waiting to be rebirthed and remembered. Sometimes going home is the only way to resolve grief and move forward. Indigenous grief echoes the aftermath of settler colonialism, boarding schools, forced removal of land and language, missing women, addiction and show more separation of families. Grief also looks like the tension in the backbones of this woman-led family as the continue to stay strong through the continued losses of one of their own and the continued abuse of their homeland.

The slow pace and tension of this one kept me glued to the pages. I adored the fact that this was a multi-genrational story about Indigenous women and family. I loved the whispers of Cree history and culture echoing through the text. The atmospheric and vivid prose was stunning. There were so many moments where I had to pause and reflect about what could be happening. The suspense was on high throughout. the heavy themes woven throughout really added a twist and gave the horror genre new layers and elements. If you're looking for a story with strong storytelling and suspense then pick this one up. I am excited to see what John's has in store in the future. Thanks to @doubledaybooks for the gifted copy. show less

A young Cree woman returns home to face her terrifying dreams and find out what’s behind them. I was expecting a horror story, but BAD CREE turned out to be more a coming-of-age tale about processing grief and guilt. The book’s pacing was slow, and it lacked a strong plot, but I did like the Cree folklore and the strong family relationships presented. I enjoyed the supernatural elements, but was hoping for more suspense.

TW: sudden death, grief, family loss

Mackenzie, a young Cree woman, begins to have very vivid dreams about her sister(who died suddenly) and awakes to a crow’s head in her bed. Through the course of the book she is forced to address the loss of her sister and kokum in the hopes of ridding her self of these very vivid dreams.

I really enjoyed this book. I lost my sister last year in a very violent way. I keep stumbling upon reads like these that deal with death in the family dynamic. In a weird way, these supernatural horror stories are helping me process my grief.

Bad Cree, by Jessica Johns, is a slow burn of a read about Mackenzie, a young Cree woman, who has left her family to live on her own after the death of her grandmother and her sister Sabrina. She’s grieving still, after two years have passed, and she’s been having bad dreams that are too vivid to be ignored. They are dreams about crows—and her sister, and those crows seem to be making an appearance in her waking life as well.

So Mackenzie heads home, knowing she needs to face her family after missing her sister’s funeral, but also to face that day at the lake when Sabrina got lost in the woods and emerged…different.

This is a story about grief and loss and family connection, and while it evokes strong feelings, it does take a show more long time to get to the heart of it all—that day at the lake. Mackenzie has regrets about how the day played out. She feels guilty for not having gone into the woods with her sisters and her cousin who were once inseparable as children. She feels guilty and responsible, although maybe unnecessarily so.

As the story plays out, and as the dreams become more real, Mackenzie, her sister, her cousin, the elder women of the extended family, all discover they have a shared gift—and secrets that have prevented them from coming together to heal as one. It’s an interesting treatise on grief, loss, while touching on themes of the sacrifices Indigenous communities have made for the sake of the white man's quest for riches and power. The story eventually delves into Native folklore involving the monstrous embodiment of these things which culminates in some tense and haunting final chapters.

But it takes time to get there. It takes patience. You have to have a certain appreciation for ambiance while reading this book. The final confrontations might make up for the slow pace through the first two thirds of the book. show less

Mackenzie, a young Cree, or nehiyaw, woman, lives in Vancouver cut off from her family after her grief being too great to return for the funeral of her sister Sabrina. She begins having vivid nightmares in which she is able to bring items from her dream into her real life, and then starts receiving text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina.

Mackenzie returns to her family home in rural Alberta and reconnects with her sister Tracey and cousin Cassidy. Together the three women begin sharing their secrets and try to unravel a mystery of a night when they were younger when Sabrina and Tracey went missing in the woods. They begin to believe they're haunted by a whetigo, a supernatural being that feeds on the family's grief.

This is an show more interesting story that winds together elements of mystery and horror with a family drama. Underpinning the story is the exploitation of the Cree community by oil companies who despoiled the region, and are hinted to be responsible for the diseases that lead to people like Sabrina to die young. I'm not quite sure I followed what happened at the climax of this book, but overall I found it to be quite a gripping narrative with well-developed characters. show less