I loved The Marrow Thieves and couldn't wait to read this one. I wasn't disappointed- Dimaline's writing and understanding of emotion is beautiful and raw in this sequel.

Years ago, plagues and natural disasters killed millions. As a result, most people stopped dreaming, making them haunted and even mad. When the government discovered the Indigenous people of North America retained their ability to dream, they reopened residential schools to bring in dreamers and forcibly harvest their marrow as a cure.

Frenchie lost his family to these schools long ago and has traveled north with his new family ever since. But when he wakes up in the dark, alone for the first time in years, he knows where he is and how difficult it will be to escape. Outside, his family searches for him, fighting against the school recruiters and vigilante cults to reunite their community.

Hunting by Stars is an intense and riveting story of family, survival, betrayal and even hope. While it’s marketed as a companion to 2017’s The Marrow Thieves, it’s a sequel. It picks up moments after The Marrow Thieves leaves off, with Frenchie waking up captured by the school recruiters and immediately thrust into a fight for his life and soul.

Unlike The Marrow Thieves, readers get multiple points of view in Hunting by Stars; in addition to Frenchie, we see inside the heads of his family members and some of the villains.

This thrilling read takes on critical topics around the mistreatment and exploitation of Indigenous peoples. The parallels between the past and this dystopian future, while not exactly subtle, are striking and realistic. Cherie Dimaline (Métis) isn’t afraid to ask hard questions without easy answers. Hunting by Stars also tackles the ethical balance of sacrifices and how people manage to justify their cruelties.

Hunting by Stars is dark, and it features genuinely horrifying situations. The action never relents, but the story is ultimately one of hope.

TW: cults, death, giving birth, imprisonment, indoctrination, medical abuse, murder, near-death of a child, torture, violence

“The words existed even now. I believed they always would, even if we didn’t because the potential of us was in those nouns and verbs. The belief that we could exist, that we had before & would again.”

This is a story about dreams.

I read #themarrowthieves & thought it was an interesting, unique dystopian in a genre that’s primarily being retread at this point… but THEN I READ THIS BOOK, the sequel & I will now be telling everyone to read it. This book, a dystopian about people who can dream & the people willing kill them to steal the privilege .. is a beautiful, haunting exploration of rebellion & humanity. There are cults, and daring escapes and sacrifices. No one is left as who they would have wanted to be. The visitation of residential schools feels somehow both dystopian… and not. I’m going to think about this for a long time.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

ABRAMS Kids, Amulet Books & Netgalley for the eArc!

I loved this almost as much as the original book! I'm so glad that Dimaline chose to continue the story - my students who loved the first book are excited to dig in.

TL;DR: Hunting by Stars continues the equal parts nightmarish and hopeful story of a makeshift indigenous family hunted for their bone marrow with the same extraordinary writing and character development. My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

I’d had Marrow Thieves waiting on my shelf for a while when I was approved for its sequel on NetGalley, so I was lucky enough to get to read them in succession. I was scared to begin Hunting by Stars after Marrow Thieves ended on a happy note where, for the moment, (almost) everyone was safe and reunited. But Alas, French is immediately captured. Both he and the family he’s been separated from have to make hard choices between their personal self-preservation and protecting one another and the community they’ve built together.

The most chilling aspect of Dimaline’s dystopian world is how clearly she traces Canada’s very real cultural genocide of indigenous people to a fictional future where dire circumstances raise the stakes and cause the (white) powers that be to demand indigenous bodies and dreams, in addition to their cultures, families, livelihoods, languages, religions, and intergenerational knowledges. But the strength of this story comes from her characters, and the resilience and resistance they represent. From details as small as the kids’ reverence for anything “old-timey” about their elders, readers feel the pride and significance they ascribe to survival and preservation.

Given that Hunting by Stars wasn’t a pre-planned sequel, I felt like the two books work surprisingly well together. The second is definitely more plot-focused, though there are still some “coming-to”-style character-centric storytelling detours that made the first book so special. Dimaline’s writing is truly unique–full of abrupt foreshadowing and matter-of-fact reportage of harrowing events. I find it so interesting how she describes some major and emotional events succinctly and straightforward (e.g. the death of main characters), while others she fleshes out in rich, evocative detail (a main character giving birth).

In terms of worldbuilding, readers will learn more about the schools and their future plans for securing a reliable source of marrow. They’ll learn more about how the schools train recruiters. They’ll learn more about how this dream epidemic has unfolded south of the Canadian border in the US.

Many thanks to NetGalley and ABRAMS Kids (Amulet Books) for giving me advance access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I can't get over the amount of feelings Dimaline is able to make the reader feel while keeping a baseline of hope. This story is gorgeous and scary and tense and feels so essential.

This started out feeling very disjointed and hard to figure out what was going on, which was especially odd considering how I just finished the first book last month. Eventually though, it did start to make more sense. Overall, I found this to be a pretty good dystopia when it was focusing on the stories and characters. I appreciated the different perspectives and how we got to see a lot of protagonists and antagonists viewpoints.

Outstanding sequel to The Marrow Thieves, this is a book I did not know I was waiting for. There were several lines that I felt compelled to copy down, and I don't do that often.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, ABRAMS Kids, and Amulet Books in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, so yeah, I thought Dimaline put readers through the wringer with THE MARROW THIEVES. But that was nothing compared to HUNTING BY STARS. This book hits you hard from the first chapter and does not let up. At all. There is no time to even catch your breath. The last 40% of the book is intense. This is a powerful read.

I loved the addition of Nam. The vigilantes were.... well they were something (honestly they were perfect white lady privilege). What happened in the shed absolutely gutted me, and the revelation of who one of the people French meets in the school was a mind-blown moment.

Sooooo Cherie Dimaline - you gave us a sequel you never really intended on writing. But with how this sequel ends.... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE revisit these characters and give us one more book. I NEED to know what happens next.

This was a highly anticipated sequel for me and it didn't disappoint. I was immediately thrown back into the world of French and his found family trying to survive.
I am glad that the author continued with the chapters that have each character's "story" as in their backstory and how they came to be in the group.
It did not feel like a year had passed since I read the first book.
The struggles that French faced were really hard and he was put into multiple impossible positions. His decision-making throughout the book was well written. The way that he, and the group, never gave up in the face of overwhelming circumstances was amazing. I honestly hope there are more books coming for these characters.

I finished this book a couple weeks ago, but I’ve been trying to get all my thoughts together. I was so happy to see that there was another book in the Marrow Thieves world following French and his new family. While I loved the way the Marrow Thieves ended, I was really hoping we’d be able to see more of the terrifying world. We definitely get that in this book.
While there are some very hard parts to read, there is so much hope and resilience within these pages. My heart was constantly breaking and mending as I read. I found myself tearing up at points and I definitely spent the last like 20% crying. This is such a well-crafted story and you really get attached to the characters and feel so deeply for them.
Though you can read Hunting by Stars without having read the first, I would highly recommend you start with The Marrow Thieves, If only for the depth of the character growth and the terrifyingly haunting world building. I find myself thinking about this world a lot.
I highly recommend this series, but please be aware there are a lot of content and trigger warnings associated with it. Some trigger warnings to be mindful of in Hunting by Stars include: abduction, cannibalism, violence, child death, death, grief, torture, hunger/starvation, graphic birthing scene, cult behavior, murder. There is probably more than this that I have forgotten.
While the story can be difficult to read at times, the way that Dimaline is able to express such depths of human emotion and connection is well worth it. The way the she writes this found family makes my heart hurt in such a good way. I highly, highly recommend you read this book.

Okay so this series (well, at first just The Marrow Thieves of course) has been on my radar for ages. Heck, it's been on my wishlist for ages! And then I saw that there was a sequel happening! So, on a whim, I requested the sequel, bought this gorgeous edition of book one, and here we are with an incredible new series for me to recommend to you!

This is kind of a review of both books, since it seems weird to just skip the first one. Also, since I am trying to keep this as spoiler-free for both books as I can, I will be vague on purpose. The premise initially threw me off a bit, because I didn't (and I suppose still cannot fully) wrap my head around it: After all kinds of global disasters, there is some kind of new disease that renders most people unable to dream, and I think eventually kills them? Anywho, because white people are historically The Worst™, they decide to grab dreams however they can get them, from the Indigenous folks of Canada and the US. Namely, via their bone marrow. And, you know, stealing it and killing them.

Frenchie has been on the run with his brother for ages, trying to avoid the complete asshats who steal Indigenous people from their homes, the forest, or really wherever they happen to stumble upon them. I cannot even imagine the horror they must have felt every single day, and the author does an amazing job of relaying that terror to the reader. Eventually, they're found, and Frenchie ends up alone, after his brother lets himself be found to save Frenchie. Eventually, Frenchie meets up with an amazing group of others on the run/hide, and they become quite a family.

The story mainly focuses on Frenchie's group's survival quest, and the horrors that will befall them if they happen to get caught. It's incredibly difficult to trust people in this world, yet they have found in each other a group that they can and do fully trust, and it's beautiful. They share their own stories of their pasts, their families, how they came to the group. It's incredibly moving. But when there is action, it's certainly exciting! I think that both books do a wonderful job of balancing the character development and action, all while still incorporating a lot of worldbuilding.

I loved the first book, and was eager to dive into the second. In fact, I found the second even more compelling and beautifully written. Again, while being vague, it had all of the same strengths as The Marrow Thieves: Strong and likable characters, great pacing, beautiful writing, a lot of adventure, and a ton of emotion. The gray morality and impossible choices are amped up a ton in Hunting the Stars too, which as you all know by now, is kind of my thing. There is more in depth world-building, answering some of the questions I had from the first installment. And I think while the ending is fully satisfying, it sets up more from this world quite nicely.

Bottom Line: This series has pretty much everything you could ask for, so just read it. Read it now.

"Maybe dreams were always in the marrow. Maybe not. Maybe they used to be everywhere-muscles, skin, voice-and then we learned how to hide them better."

"Sometimes you risk everything for a life worth living, even if you're not the one who'll be alive to live it."

Not me crying over another Cherie Dimaline book :,)

Cherie Dimaline sucked me in immediately with The Marrow Thieves; it made me laugh and cry and hope and fear. The sequel, Hunting By Stars, was no different.

This book is about a world wracked by trauma - pandemics, climate change, so much loss - but mostly it’s about a family. In The Marrow Thieves, our main character, Frenchie, and his found family are searching for safety from the new residential schools. In Hunting by Stars, Frenchie has been abducted into one and must fight his way back to the people he loves while they continue to seek asylum.

Dimaline writes a cast of beautifully complex Indigenous characters full of so much hope and love even after a worsening world continues to kill and steal from them. They build community and continue to search for a place to be and share who they are once again. In the previous book, the focus is totally on the building of Frenchie's family and their story, but in this sequel, the author gives faces and names to the oppressors and shows us the firsthand treatment of Indigenous peoples, treated as animals or something not even living at all. This family goes through trauma after trauma, but the resilience and the decision to continue to love and survive never leaves any of them even as their family grows smaller and larger.

These books are fast-paced but I stop to read passages I love over and over because to me they often sound too poetic to keep in my head. I’ve even read passages aloud to friends because they just needed to be heard. Dimaline's characters feel like friends and I felt happy or sad or anxious for them in turns as this story went on.

Thank you to Netgalley and ABRAMS Kids for my copy!

4.5 stars.
Cherie Dimaline returns to the dystopian world she created in "Marrow Thieves”, where, after a plague, everyone but the indigenous lost their ability to dream, inflicting madness and more death upon an already hurting population. Unfortunately, what did this population do once it became obvious the indigenous weren't similarly affected? Capture, extract the bone marrow from indigenous people, and murder them. In fact, an entire operation, similar to the residential school system, was created to ensure a supply of marrow for the afflicted.
In book one, we met young Frenchie, a boy whose brother sacrificed himself to Recruiters (as the kidnappers are called) so Frenchie could escape. After falling in with a small group of other indigenous, Frenchie spends years on the run, learning a number of skills to help his group and making strong, loving bonds with these people.
When this book opens, Frenchie has been captured; he's disoriented, terrified because though he doesn't know where he is (except that it's likely a marrow extraction facility), feeling very, very alone, and worried that his found family was also captured. Luckily, they weren't, and they spend time looking for Frenchie, while continuing to attempt to evade capture.

This book is so much darker than book one (I know, how much worse can the situation get for these characters?) This time, Dimaline puts a face to the captors and collaborators/appeasers. Dimaline also has Frenchie and Rose (who decides to leave the group to rescue Frenchie) discover just what they are prepared to do and what they are prepared to give of themselves, when they encounter rationalizations and mounting danger, and others who stand in the way of their goals. Dimaline takes us to some disturbing places for and within these characters, but believable and tragic.
It's not an easy book, as one sees the ease with which the racist captors diminish and murder a people, and the way some of the captives collaborate in the destruction of their own.
For all that, this is a compelling book -- I tore through it, desperate to know how my favourite characters were going to survive this situation. I like Frenchie and Rose, but Miig! I love him so much, and this book shows us what a wonderful role model Miig is for Frenchie and the whole group.
I am so glad Cherie Dimaline decided to revisit this harrowing world so we could see what was next for her characters; though their situations were grim and scary, there is so much love within the group, and I’m glad we got to spend more time with these people.

Thank you to Netgalley and ABRAMS Kids for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This is a unique concept that is executed so well. While the premise is fantastical the reactions of the characters and the world at large to the situation are rooted in historic events that bring realism and horror to the story. The book is fast paced in a way that serves the surreal nature of the story and underscores the importance of the dream elements. Overall the book is well written and captivating to read.

In this near-future world, plagues and natural disasters are common, and most of humanity has lost their ability to dream. When the government discovers that Indigenous people retain the power to dream, they are locked up in former residential schools and their dream-giving marrow is forcibly extracted. In this sequel to The Marrow Thieves, French wakes up in a dark, unfamiliar space, only to realize he’s been captured. His only goal is to escape the residential school and return to his found family. On the outside, his friends are on the run as well as they face even more threats. This is a fast-paced survival story that will make you think about how our actions impact the world around us. Highly recommended.

This sequel to Marrow Thieves stands on its own as a narrative. It follows the story of the heroes of the first novel and recalls their path, but carves out a new journey as well as ties up loose ends. Ultimately, this would be best read as a duology, but having not read the first book I can still say that the second novel was great on its own. Told in different perspectives, the story follows the plague that continues to haunt North America. People are turning into zombies and are desparate for a cure. As time goes on they discover that indigenous people are still able to dream, and those most desperate will do anything to get their dreams back. The solution becomes to steal the marrow of First Nation people. French, Miigwans, Wab, Chi Boy, Derrick, Rose, Zheegwon, and Tree are the main characters who have forged a bond of family. When Hunting By Stars begins, French has been kidnapped by a residential school that has reopened as a way of kidnapping and killing Native American people for their marrow. The family survives in the wild and hatches a plan to rescue French. The things they discover within the residential schools and who they can or can't trust made this story fast-paced and at times difficult to read.

Cherie Dimaline really didn’t hold back with this sequel to The Marrow Thieves, available October 18, 2021! I had some mixed feelings as I read this because I read it as both an adult reader as well as a junior high (7th-8th) librarian; reading this served two purposes: one, for my own personal desire to read the sequel, and two, to decide whether or not the sequel would be perfectly fine to add to our library’s collection. But before I go into all my thoughts, a quick summary!

Hunting by Stars picks up a little bit after the events of The Marrow Thieves. French has been captured and is being held in a residential school. Meanwhile, his band of friends take charge in the search and a few even decide to implement a plan to find him and bring him back. While the events of the first book were tough, the challenges presented to the main characters are even tougher this time around, and not all will come out of it unscathed.

What I Loved:
- There were many back and forth chapters between characters and groups of people, which I tend to love as a reader (but also admit can be difficult to follow as a junior higher). Some of these chapters were set aside specifically for a character to share their story of how they arrived where they did, and I appreciated having that extra new background information about characters I remembered from the first book.
- I love how personal this story was in how it incorporates Cree language and culture. (The author’s note was especially wonderful seeing all that went into the story. I really appreciated how she encouraged readers to talk to teachers and do research on other nations and histories, especially in regards to residential schools in Canada and the US.)
- There are some really obvious parallels between the events of the story and the recent events of mass graves being found a residential schools. I found it incredibly timely that the story touched on this information in its own way.
- There were a few parts that were almost reminiscent of Stephen King’s “The Institute” which was interesting to me.

What I Didn’t Love:
- This sequel really upped the ante on profanity usage to the point that it was even a bit distracting. As a junior high librarian, I just can’t justify putting a book in the library that had so much (and a significantly large variety!), and this really breaks my heart because the first one was so impactful and I wanted desperately to be able to house the continuation of the story. As a reader, I didn’t mind it but it was distracting at times and took away from the enjoyment of falling into the story.
- The back and forth between characters and groups was initially confusing (to get your bearings) and I could see junior high kids struggling to stay oriented.
- I wish there had been a little bit more of an explanation of how this world really worked and how everyone got there. (More details on the past world.)
- There were some content moments that were really tough and I was not expecting, and while these sort of ended up okay (ish?) in most cases (and entirely fine in others), again, some of it was just more than I could justify putting in our library. As an adult reading the book, some of it was rough but still made for a great read.

Overall:
Overall, I really enjoyed this book as a general reader but have some reservations as a junior high librarian. This is definitely more Young Adult than the first book and I would be cautious when considering putting it in a library for 7th-8th graders or below. This might be fine for upper level high schoolers or more mature YA readers that could handle some of the tougher content and profanity. I definitely do recommend this to adults and young adults who read the first book, enjoyed it, and want to know where the story went.

Content Warnings:
- Significant amounts of profanity
- Loss of family members and friends (grief, coping)
- Death of relatives and friends
- Some violence
- Abuse (medically, physically)
- Near death of a child (smothering)
- Cult content (dominant male, predatory behavior, abuse of women)
- Culture and identity theft of Indigenous individuals (and associated trauma)

Thank you to Netgalley and ABRAMS Kids for an e-ARC of this book!

Wow this was a crazy and I loved every page. I do wish that I would have read book one first but I guess I will have to go back and do that. I didn't feel lost too bad so I think I got the gist of it. I loved the characters and the pacing and the story. I laughed and had a great time with this one.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

I’m so thankful Dimaline for listening to her readers and continuing French’s story. After finishing this, I hope she’ll do it again!

The story picks up right where it ended in The Marrow Thieves, but follows as French realizes he was abducted by Recruiters and taken to a school. Chaos ensues as he experiences horrors that he never could have imagined, including coming face to face with the brother he thought was dead.

Rose cannot wait for news and starts out for the nearest school with Derrick in tow and stumbles upon a different house of horrors. Once the rest of the group receives news of French and what the schools plan to do, they must run even if it means leaving Rose behind. The situations Rose and Miig’s group encounter were hard for me to wrap my mind around, and the ending seemed rushed.

Reading this story as more and more mass graves are being discovered at the sites of former Residential Schools in both Canada and the US made the horrors of this dystopian story even more chilling.