This book was first published in 2017 in French and won the Indigenous Voices Award for prose. The English version is due to be released in September 2019. I wish to thank NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the advanced copy of the book in return for an honest review.

This work of literary fiction appears to be flawlessly translated into English. It is told in a non-linear fashion, and descriptions of the outdoors and nature are lyrical. It also delves deep into the mind of a young female psychopath.

It is narrated by the young woman in a stream of consciousness. She comes from a loving family and describes herself as being average and with innocuous features, solitary, and unlikely to be noticed. She enjoys nature walks, picking berries, stealthily walking neighbourhood dogs, and watching or spying on people. One day when she was aged 12, she was watching an unpleasant classmate from a concealed position and decided to scare him. She accidentally killed him and was never suspected. She decided she liked the thrill it gave her, and from this point decided to become a murderer. She employs careful planning and patience and her cold-blooded killings are untraceable.

She is proud of what she is doing, but regrets that she is unable to brag about her cleverness, thus winning the admiration of others for her crimes. She rationalizes she is doing the world a favour by ridding it of people that don’t deserve to take up air or space. Among her victims are a reckless driver, a man just released from prison for rape, and the CEO of an energy company causing environmental degradation.

In closing, she describes a startling and horrific scene with such calmness and detachment that I was futilely hoping it was just her dream. In my opinion, I might have enjoyed the book more if it had been presented in a more traditional, linear structure, with supporting characters more developed. Nevertheless, I feel that the author achieved her goal in telling this dark, well-written tale about the making of a cold-hearted killer and in describing her thought processes.

A deeply dark and highly mysterious story. This definitely lives up to the hype Quite hard hitting at times but told very well. Highly recommend