✒This coming-of-age historical fiction, took me through the life of KQ. A young man who grew up living off the land with his parents in upper Canada, as most indigenous people were living at that time.

✒Things suddenly took a drastic turn, when colonizers came and separated him from his family. KQ along with the other children that were taken, got their hair cut and names changed. After his days at the school were over, he was sent back home, to a changed community and land. His land. The land he had big plans for.

✒KQ is a fine example of the devastating effects of colonization. I loved that he was so determined to hold on to all of who he was, especially his spiritual connection to the land. We also get to see other members of his family and how they dealt with the hand that was given to them.

✒Katlia has inspired me to do some research about the indigenous people and the catholic church, in Canada. Before reading this novel, I had no idea.

✒WHAT I LEARNED:
I was reminded that the system was never designed to be for all people. Most importantly, that we really don't have all the time we think we have on this earth.

✒Considering the similar stories echoed on each continent, it's safe to say, that this book paints an accurate picture of indigenous history. However, KQ's story is just a tiny drop of water, in a very full bucket.

Another book that gripped my heart strings. 🤗
HAPPY READING!❤

This House is Not a Home is a visceral, searing look at the impact of the "Christian' indoctrination forced on the native peoples of northern Canada. Kǫ̀ is a Dene boy when we meet him. He lives with his parents in a completely subsistence life. They are in complete partnership with the land, and they are very happy. Shortly after Kǫ̀ goes on a dangerous solo journey with his sled team, missionaries arrive and rip all of the children away from the Dene people.

Kǫ̀ and the others are sent to boarding schools where they are 'Christianized,' beaten, starved, humiliated, and completely cut off from their families. In all those years, he makes one friend, Ts'l, who will eventually become his wife. Without warning he is returned to his 'home' which is now a mining town. No longer speaking his native languag,e and with the landscape so changed, he struggles to find his home but finally does, discovering that his father is gone and his mother is struggling to make ends meet living in a money-based white world.

The book follows Kǫ̀ as he grows into a man and starts his own family. When they return from a hunting trip to find their home completely gone, they are forced to move into a government house, which Kǫ̀ hates. His wife is soon struggling with one addition as his brother struggles with another. As his life becomes more and more subsumed by the white, capitalist life, Kǫ̀'s heart and soul suffer deeply. There is a happy ending of sorts, but there is no escaping the horror and the sadness of this family and the Dene people.

This book is an absolute must-read, and my strong suggestion is that everyone, including high school students, should read it. It was heart-breaking, eye-opening, and so very, very important to read. This House is Not a Home is the best book I have read this year.

An absolutely beautiful, heartwrenching story, This House Is Not A Home is sure to be one of the best books of 2022. Fair warning, this is not a story that will make you feel good, but it is definitely a story everyone with a beating heart should read because it tells the story of how settlers have invaded the sacred lands of the Indigenous people, and how despite the pain, suffering, and loss, they still continue to thrive with dignity and resilience.

This has got to be one of the most true and sad stories I've read in a long time. How we have ruined our planet is a true sin. How Indigenous people of the world are mistreated is a sin! This is a story based on fact of a family in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They were raised living off the land and suffered horrible mistreatment from who else, the white man! The loss of a beautiful culture is mind numbing! I'm glad to know they are finally fighting back and returning to living a sustainable and harmonious life. This is one book you will never forget! Thank you to NetGalley and Roseway Publishing and to the Author KATLIA for the arc.

Stripped of name, language, religion, Ko is forced into a residential school. When he returns to his land, everything has changed, with plenty more changes ahead for him and his family.
Heart breaking and eye opening novel - highly recommended.

First Impressions: I felt drawn into this book by the cover. Bright blue sky, and white land covered in a mountain of snow where you can see the top of a house sticking out. On either side of the house there are a Buffalo & a Musk ox (pretty sure i thought these were the same animal for a while)

This is an important book that talks about government abuse and the unique displacement of native peoples in the land known as Canada. The stewards of the land for hundreds of years had their children stripped from their hands and sent to residential schools which did not prepare them for the working world but tortured them into forgetting their own langauge and culture and removed them from their families/support systems. Because detailed notes were not taken many children never saw their families again after this. The government removed the humble shacks that the native people built to protect themselves from the coldest parts of winter when the families were out hunting, tricking them into agreeing to “home ownership” in a new bigger but less well built home that the government was “providing”. In this way housing “given” by the government serves as a tool to displace people even when they are literally on the same land as their ancestors. Now people who have provided for their families by hunting sustainably and gathering had to get jobs to keep their families fed and housed. There is no longer any time to hunt, especially with dwindling populations of Moose. Except it's hard to get a job with no formal education. Creating a cycle of poverty that before settler colonialism did not exist within Indigenous communities.

Heartbreaking story, but well worth reading. While the ideas in the book are not new, I appreciated that they were told from the point of view of an indigenous person rather than the "settler" so the reader gets to the heart of the struggles forced upon the indigenous people through forced assimilation. We are shown how "civilization" rips families apart, destroys cultures and ruins nature, but the writer also demonstrates the strength and resilience of humanity through Ko and his family.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC.

DNF - I was initially drawn to this book because of the perspective & geography where the story takes place. However, I do not think this book should be advertised as being for adult audiences because the tone employed is incredibly young & would appeal to yet matured readers. Had this book been advertised as primarily a YA novel I would have been prepared for the writing approach however, this facet only enhanced my displeasure as I continued as I made it to the 50% mark with the realization that the reader is provided the bare minimum throughout the story & that was to the detriment of the superb perspectives that were presented by the characters.

The author in this case acts as the narrator of the story while simultaneously granting the main character the ability to feel in an omnipotent way; expressing deep emotions & fore through while remaining detached from the narrative's perspective & subsequently any possibly connection to the reader. The disjointed relationship between the narrator & the main character stunts the emotional translation of lived experiences. The main character encounters a transition of events throughout time while never going into depth about any of them. Given the narrator acts as a third party, overseeing the development of the story of which they already know the ending, the refusal to detail emotional experiences strips the reader of their ability to gauge empathetic responses to the objectively horrific events taking place on the page.

The book moves at once, rapidly through events without granting them sufficient time to settle in the mind of the reader while also sluggishly moving towards the next series of events. What renders this story different from the autobiographical accounts of all of the events listed in this book? It is certainly important to have stories shared, this is also how knowledge is acquired & developed yet, by floating overhead of events that require further wording to express their impacts, the author has removed themselves as a presence in the story.

The over-usage of "little did ___ know" should be edited. One can gauge that the characters perform their daily tasks & take on decision making without knowledge of the oncoming day's changes, this does not need to be continuously repeated at the end of chapters for emphasis on the mysterious.

Approaching the story in such a superfluous way leaves the reader at a loss. Who is the main character? We know nothing about him save for the select details given to the reader of which they are meant to intone his total conscious state. Perhaps, once past the 50% mark the book would have begun to explore how Residential School impacted the main character & perhaps we would have finally returned to the mystery regarding his father yet, what would lead one to feel eager to know what seemingly leaves the main character unperturbed? One does not need to be emotionally evocative but, given the stance of the narrator, it would have been beneficial to read about how becoming a father impacted the main character & if this made him reflect, in any way, to the father he loved, who never came to save him from the School.

With some editing I think this book could present a story that flows exceedingly well. The plot does hold much potential & presents an interesting take for YA audiences - or younger - to approach the subject matter that is at once known yet uncommonly addressed.

*Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!*

Everything about this book took my heart, ripped it to shreds, and somehow managed to put it back together again after so much heartache. I knew what I was getting myself into from the description, but this exceeded all of my expectations, and I wound up reading the whole book in one sitting. Before I go any further, I should mention that I am indigenous too, Potawatomi and Ojibwe, so I tried really hard to read it objectively, but it spoke to my soul and endeared it to me in a way that most books do not.

Told from a 3rd person omniscient POV, we follow Kǫ̀, a Dene man, through his life, from growing up solely on the land with the ways of his people in his culture to being taken from his family and forced into residential school, and everything that comes after with further forced assimilation and settlers on the land he grew up in. Not only does this novel show what happens to him in an external sense, like the changing of his life and everything he has ever known prior to boarding school, in an internal sense and how that has an impact on his psyche, and even his family.

Every indigenous person knows the history, no matter what tribe, it is essentially all the same. That is the hard thing about this book because you know where it's going and you feel that ache deep down in your heart because you cannot stop it. That's not to say it is not fresh and invigorating, because it is, only that one knows what is to come because of where we are today. What I also loved about this is the way the use of language is utilized, because prior to his time in boarding school, the dialogue is in the native language (though the author does a good job of explaining what was said in dialogue tags/following sentences) and during different moments in his life, there becomes a mix, to becoming predominantly English. It really shows the reader, in real-time, what he was experiencing and the struggle of having your native language taken from you, then having to relearn it.

I also love that the novel also does not focus predominantly on Kǫ̀ as it also includes other members of his family and the different ways they face what has happened to them. Everyone faces things differently and as we move into newer generations in his lineage, we see the adaptation they experience that comes far easier than it does for Kǫ̀ who remembers life before such changes. It really opens up the multiple realities of colonization, assimilation, and boarding schools, because it continued culturally long after it happened in a ripple effect, and this novel highlights that wonderfully.

I believe this is a novel that non-indigenous people can read before going into memoirs/non-fiction novels to learn the history. Even if it is a piece of fiction, I would say it is quite accurate and paints a vivid picture of history. For indigenous people, I think this novel would be a hard one to face, as it is definitely heart-wrenching to have the history shared in a way that lets you visualize it while getting attached to the characters, because in truth, they really are real-life people, as mentioned how it is inspired by a family the author knows of.

Overall, I love this book and will be recommending it highly to everyone.

Content warnings: animal deaths, blood, hunting, injured animals, death, hypothermia, miscarriage, mother forcibly removed from home, bullying, racism, assault, destroyed habitats, concussions, drugs, gambling, poisoning, murder, car crash, gangs, drug dealing, cancer, suicide, incarceration, Residential school: stolen children, cutting hair, stripping of name, abuse, forced assimilation, brainwashing, refusal to eat, choking, force-feeding, unmarked graves, illness, colonization, displacement, alcoholism.