• contemporary teenage fiction set in a small town near Calgary, Alberta, Canada 
• elements of mystery, coming-of-age, romance
• third-person rotating perspectives of three Metis and Cree First Nations main characters
• Cam's cousin Kiki went missing five months ago, and it seems the town has already forgotten about her 
• Cam's mom was murdered and her remains were found about 1.5 years ago, so he and his family (Sami, Tanya, Callie) have also been grieving her
• Berlin's navigating a friendship breakup with Quintana-Roo, and is especially gutted over it because she has no idea what went wrong 
• Jessie starts working part-time at Pink Mountain Pizza with them, and shows there is more to the rich girl, "tease" stereotype that everyone has labeled her with 
• The narrative takes us through a weekend, as these teenagers unpack their struggles, and unravel what really happened to Kiki 
• cw: anti-Blackness, animal death, past cancer treatment, past child abuse, undiagnosed depression, kidnapping, adult/minor relationship, fallout of a friendship, bullying

From the content warnings section at beginning: Take care of yourself while reading, first and foremost. If you’re not ready to read now, that’s okay because books are forever, and you matter more than books. This is truth, always, until time runs out and books are no more, so basically forever-ever.

Both of them, Métis and Cree, were guests of the Îyârhe Nakoda, Siksika, Blood, and Kootenai First Nations on whose land they lived. And since they were surrounded by settlers—mostly white people—and tourists from around the world, Berlin and Cameron stood in for every Indigenous person, in the whole corrupt colonial country of Canada, all the freaking time. She tried to be a good representative. He did not.

Now neither Sami or Tanya or Callie would touch the honey. The jar sat on the counter in the exact place Kiki always left it, tucked next to the coffee maker. The girls ate their toast dry. As if honey would no longer taste sweet.

It was not fair. But it was fact.

But he kept imagining that one day the same thing that had happened to Kiki would happen to his sisters. Jesus, to Sami. Eventually to Berlin too. It was what happened to Native women and girls. To Two-Spirit people. It wasn’t a natural disaster, this.

The deep-down fear in Cam’s body wasn’t gone, but it was at least settled. It would wake again.

This is a safe space, he says, like safe spaces exist, like words become real things, like safety isn’t relative.

She’d vibed hard with kissing a girl. As much as she thought she would...But somewhere, behind the anxiety that made her hands and legs unsteady, it was nice knowing that suddenly the world was open a little wider than it had been before. Girls, what a revelation. As she tied her apron, Jessie smiled. Her father would hate this. And that made things all the sweeter.

He threw the dough against the counter again. There was a sweet spot. Too cold and it was stiff. Too warm and you’d put holes through it with your fingers as it stretched out to fit the pan. But you could overwork the dough too—make it stiff, without tenderness. That was a life lesson. One Bee could maybe work on. If she was a tad more elastic, she’d be happier. It was like yoga for the personality.

Pink Mountain wasn’t a person. But even in Berlin’s numb state, this place was important to her. “It’s not the same thing as when we stop caring about people,” she said aloud to her coworkers. Not exactly friends. “But it’s a symptom of the same disease. When we can let the things that bring us together fall apart, become places without souls, it’s another way we learn not to care about each other. Or about the land. Capitalism eats and eats and never satiates its hunger. It eats without thought. And that’s not eating anymore. That’s consumption.”

I believe in secrets in seeing what you shouldn’t & choosing to swallow it down, let those secrets roost amongst your own.

What held him apart, what made him shine like crystallized honey? That he never asked. Never assumed. That he didn’t use me. That he returned & returned. That he stayed until closing. Listened and listened. That he spun safety like sugar crystals.

Well, you did it, love. You broke the tiny perfect thing we were creating.

Feelings. They fucked you up well and proper. But the thing with feelings was, even if it was your own body they were ravaging, a person wasn’t always sure what to call them, how to name them.

Friendship isn’t about needing people. It’s about having them next to you when you do scary, awful things. Wonderful stuff too. But this morning, we’re in the scary, awful category.

Cam’s heart broke open. Splayed itself, and then it was beating again. A new wound to carry etched into the muscle.

Everyone laughed. They laughed around the hurt, with the pain. Because, yes, there was hurt and pain sitting in the room too...And pain was part of a good life.

That was the thing about laughter. It healed what hurt, balmed the rough moments until they were steady again. That was one good, good thing about laughter. And it turned out, in this life, it only took one good thing to feed possibility, to stifle fear, to invite more goodness inward and onward.

From author’s note:
I believe that we need more characters who experience depression and other mood disorders represented in our books and other media. One of the ways we recognize parts of ourselves is by seeing our reflections out in the world.

The problem is ongoing and travels across colonial borders. #MMIWG2S activists remind us to stay small, to get involved in local action. That’s where we have the most effect. To find a local-to-you action network, check out where these hashtags are used in your city or town: #MMIW, #MMIWG, #NoMoreStolenSisters, #MissingAndMurdered. It’s up to us to make a world where Kiki’s daughter, and others, can thrive.

Representing how anti-Blackness functions, how it happens in seemingly unconscious ways, how it takes these caring and activist-savvy teens too long to understand what they’ve done, is absolutely intentional. They might comprehend a lot of things about racism, misogyny, and other gender-based violence, as well as privilege, but they do not understand how anti-Blackness exists within them and in their communities.