I am seeing more Sci-Fi/Fantasy books by BIPOC authors. I love the genre but have always been uncomfortable with how white and male it is. It's a bigger issue that I want to get into here, but it was great to read about a minority group, in this case the Lipan Apache from a member of the tribe instead of a well-meaning but problem-fraught white dude. And it's a well-written book to boot!

Here are some of my takeaways:

The breaking down of boundaries, specifically between the living and the dead, is a major trickster trope; and the reason the book was recommended to me.

I wonder if the story about Coyote person in the Bat person's cave was a real Apache story.

Not really a spoiler, but I'm going to cover it up because it is tangentially related to the ending.

Spoiler

Another trickster trope is Coyote always being on the move. When Elatsoe and her fam pic up a coyote on their way home, the coyote doesn't have a destination in mind, she's just looking to travel.

Is Vivian's storytelling style, the deliberate pace and intentionally including many details, a Native American storytelling style?

The author's take on vampires is that they're cursed men. They still have the same inability to enter someone's home.

Spoiler

Which is marvelously used when Vivian says one is unwelcome in her home and since the entire land in the ancestral home of her people, he's forced to flee not just the city but the state, many states, because the original spread of the Apache covered more than one.

There's a ghost doggo!

I highly recommend this book.

Expectedly, this book is incredible. Check out my full review here!! ✨

Here's a preview:
Charming, delightful, sweet, magical, beautiful, light and powerful

I absolutely loved Elatsoe. I was really fortunate to be able to read (almost all of) this before submitting my vote for the IGNYTE Awards. This story completely charmed me right from the beginning. It is light and powerful all at the same time, truly something to be proud of. I knew this book would be good, but I didn’t realize quite how much I’d fall in love with it.

Quick Summary: Elatsoe, or Ellie, lives in a world very similar to our own, but much more heavily ruled and shaped by magic. Passed down through generations of her Lipan Apache family, Elatsoe has the power to raise the spirits of dead animals, and is always accompanied by her loyal ghost dog, Kirby. Just after she hears her cousin has died in a car accident, he comes to her in her dreams and tells her that there is more to his death than it appears. Ellie and her father immediately set off on a quest to see if they can uncover some of the secrets. Keep Reading...

I received this book for free and am leaving this review voluntarily

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My first and middle name are both in this but I swear my unbiased opinion is I LOVE THIS BOOK!!! I’m going to read everything Little Badger writes, the premise was so incredible!

Ellie Bride
Willowbee Texas

I struggled with the awkward and uninspiring dialogue in the beginning of the book (it is YA after all), but when the plot started picking up, I was so consumed that I hardly even noticed.

4.5 stars for a slow start, but makes up for it with fascinating cultural aspects, an asexual MC, and a pack of ghost dogs.
Should someone tag “the dog dies” if the dog in question is a ghost?

Even though this is a Teen Novel, I really really enjoyed it. The story was so unique and a perspective I’d never heard before. I look forward to their next book!

Outside of the obvious reasons why this book is a good fit for me— world building, mythology, cool casually queer characters, ghosts— I love the parallel narrative. So sneaky. So good. Make sure you pay attention to the images that start each chapter.