"Maybe dreaming is just a series of small deaths."

Author Jessica Johns hooks you up to a pair of jumper cables and gives it the gas for a great jump start beginning for readers eager for the supernatural horror the book description teases. Heart racing, blood pumping - there's no better way for a horror novel to start, in my opinion.

Once we get past that initial rush and fall into the book's regular pacing, it slowed down a little too much for me. I loved Mackenzie's huge family - I would have loved to have spent more time getting to know them a touch more. Honestly, I'd read a whole book on them alone. I loved reading about the Aunties and their grandmother's sayings, I loved the loud hustle and bustle when they were together - I could feel the love and warmth rolling off the pages in waves. I also enjoyed the tidbits of Cree beliefs, customs and traditions that were sprinkled into the narrative. Again, I would have loved more! Without getting into spoilers, there were some things mentioned that I did end up on the internet researching myself, just for personal education and to better understand what our characters were dealing with. Pretty scary stuff....that's actual. That took this one up a level for me with that nugget of lore.

There were a lot of convenient plot devices that ate at me and stayed on my mind long enough to pull me out of the story and distract me. I'd read something and 10 pages later, would still be thinking "There's no way in this particular day and age that x would happen like that." I can suspend my belief when it comes to the horror and supernatural elements, but the mundane everyday stuff....I have a little bit harder time with.

I had a love/hate relationship with Mackenzie's coming-of-age story. There was some great growth and development, but again, the pacing just took too long to get us there. There were so many times Mackenzie would think of acting on an emotion, only to decide not to. So many times.

All that aside, this book had an excellent premise and I will absolutely read more by Jessica Johns - especially if Johns continues in the vein of Indigenous horror/supernatural genre.

Special thanks goes to Doubleday Books for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Content warnings: death of a sibling, brain hemorrhage, discussion of alcoholism, blood, gore, violence against animals (birds, the dog does not die), drowning. generational trauma

Mackenzie lost her older sister, Sabrina, several years prior in what seemed like a natural cause. But recently, horrible nightmares have been plaguing her sleep, including items being pulled from the dreamscape into the real world. Turning to her remaining sister, cousin, mother, and aunties for help, perhaps she can quiet the supernatural disturbance once and for all.

Johns masterfully uses dreams as both a narrative and a plot device to tell the story of trauma both personal and generational with a focus on finding support in one’s family and community for respite and healing.

At its core, this is a book about grief and regret, and how self-isolating under the false pretense of healing can lead to more problems than not. Johns does not shy in depicting the ways it can put its claws in people, regardless their interrupted sleep. The theme of finding healing through community and family shines strong here, though it doesn’t shirk away from the thorns everyone else carries on their own healing journeys. I loved the dynamic between Mackenzie and the women in her life, but also as importantly, her relationship with Joli whom she befriended upon moving away from home. No person is an island, and even when the supernatural tries to put wedges between Mackenzie and those she cares about, there is fierce love in the pushback.

In terms of the scares, the imagery is disturbing in a way that’s both dreamlike and incredibly grounded. Safety becomes twisted and taking control of oneself in a dreamlike state seems impossible. Johns does such cool things working with dreams as a literary device in introducing new details and providing further context for everyone’s hurt, not just Mackenzie’s. I’d almost go so far as to say that it’s the primary vehicle of the plot, but I’ll refrain from saying much else because that would be spoilers.

A treat for folks who enjoy their horror to explore the uneven path of healing from grief and folkloric scares, definitely not one to miss when building a horror to-be-read list.

In this debut supernatural thriller, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her back home, where a wheetigo (windigo) preys on the family's grief for her grandmother and her sister. Mackenzie has tried to run away from her family and their losses but her nightmares have started to bleed into reality and she returns home to relearn the strength of family, community, and connection to the land. "That's the best and worst thing about being connected to everything: you are a part of it all, but you can't choose what gets sent out into the world. Or what can find you." This is a supernatural horror thriller that explores generational trauma, touching on themes of grief and family and the devastation wrought on native lands by industrial greed and negligence. An impressive debut by Jessica Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta, Canada.

[Thanks @DoubledayBooks and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

Mackenzie leaves home (Alberta CA) after the death of her Kokum (grandmother) and moves to Vancouver. Her sister Sabrina dies while she is living in Vancouver and she doesn't return home for the funeral. When she wakes up one morning after a particularly real dream (I'd call it a nightmare 🤷🏻‍♀️) she thinks she is still holding the head of a crow. But, when she blinks it disappears. CREEPY! I loved it!
After a few more horrible nightmares she decides to tell her family and ultimately decides to go home for their help. When she arrives her family welcomes her but not necessarily with open arms which I think intensified her dreams. Again, I loved it!!
Add in the Weetigo (basically a supernatural creature that can shape shift into a person and make can capture someone's attention and make them do terrible things) and I knew I needed to finish the book as quickly as possible.
I'm not familiar with the Cree culture so that was a wonderful added bonus. It made me Google and research their culture. I love learning! I'm definitaly seeking out another Indigenous book or two this year!

Honestly, what I was expecting is not what I got with this book. I'm totally okay with it. I was expecting more horror but this was more creepy. Does that make sense? Good. I knew it would 🤣🤣 I think maybe that is why the reviews as either love or dislike this book? 🤷🏻‍♀️

On the scale of Buy, Borrow, Bargain, Bud or Bust I'm rating this one as Bargain or Borrow

Read This Book If:
you want to read a book by an indigenous author
you like books set in other countries and/or cultures
you want to be creeped out a bit not a whole lot
you like books with tight knit families

This was a surprising read for me - it's a Canadian fiction (but horror) and horror isn't always my genre (because I'm little bit of a wimp!) This book starts with a bang (not a spoiler it's in the description), but our main character wakes up with a crow's head in her hand after dreaming of her deceased sister, so we dive in to the character's dream past but also her finally travelling back to her family home and dealing with what is happening. While this is a horror story and it does get creepy as they dive in to what happened, it also has some discussion on greed,, family and this family is truly coming together not only to deal with the death of her sister as well as her kokum. It does take a little bit to get things moving as our main character is coming to terms with going home, but then you can't put it down!

Fairly decent read. A bit muddled at times but worked out overall. Not scary or creepy, kind of melodramatic. The ending seemed rushed.

From the very first pages I was pulled into this story. This book is full of female characters who all have a part to play. The Cree family are all going though their own grief. I enjoyed the elements of community and culture as well. The author provides context for the handful of Cree words throughout the text which I enjoyed. This book was a unique supernatural horror that I wasn’t anticipating and very much enjoyed!!

In the introduction, debut author Jessica Johns says that Bad Cree was born out of a comment from her writing professor, about how writing dream sequences were boring. Johns set out to prove him wrong. And succeeded.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a crow in her hand, she realizes that she has brought another object back to reality with her from the dream world. She keeps dreaming about her recently deceased sister, Sabrina, and reluctantly tells her family about the dreams, as they are getting more and more troubling.

I absolutely loved Mack, our protagonist, and her interesting and very believable family dynamic. All of the sisters, mothers, aunts, and cousins were very much their own characters with their own personalities. Joli, her coworker, is probably the only nonbinary Native character I've ever read, but it made me sad to see that they weren't included more in the story. The dream sequences felt cinematic, and I could completely picture the lake and the surrounding woods everytime Mack went back there, either in her waking or sleeping mind. I feel strange saying that a book with so much death and grief was a delight to read, but Bad Cree was truly a delight.

I'm certain that BAD CREE will draw a lot of comparisons to Erika Wurth's WHITE HORSE, another recent horror novel featuring a young Indigenous woman plagued by terrifying dreams and attempting to unravel the painful mystery of a lost family member all while struggling to navigate increasingly complicated relationships with her friends and family. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that BAD CREE will shine in that context.

This is a shame, as I do think Johns' debut has quite a lot to offer its readers! The overall voice and tone of the novel are gripping, and Mackenzie's relationships with her family members are so beautifully rendered. The nightmarish moments are suitably scary and compelling, even if the ultimate plot payoff isn't quite as big as I'd hoped. Ultimately, I found the pacing of the novel to fall apart in the last third -- it wrapped up just when I wanted it to explore more deeply. That being said, it was a debut novel I could not put down, and I will certainly keep an eye out for Johns' next title!

I just could not get through this one. The review copy I received did not have any chapters or sections broken up. Not sure if the book is meant to be that way or not. My OCD just couldn’t let me keep going.

I am going to be honest with yall, I maybe back in my horror-thriller era because of this one. I was super nervous with the page count that it may have been too short going in, but somehow Jessica Johns makes every moment count. For this being just a debut, I am dying for more.

Miigwech to NetGalley and the publisher (Doubleday) for giving me an e-arc of this novel!

<i>Bad Cree</i> follows MacKenzie, a young Cree woman, who awakens from a dream one night holding a severed crow's head. What follows is her journey back home to confront her (and her family's) grief and the settler-colonial violence enacted on her home.

I loved this book. From the beginning, I was hooked. I loved MacKenzie as a main character, and saw myself in so many of the decisions that she made. Her relationship with her family and the way the novel depicts healing and kinship meant so much to me. They all felt like such realistic and well rounded characters, and it was great to see how strong they were in their own ways.

I also absolutely loved the way this novel progressed--it's so good and something I've been wanting to see from an Indigenous perspective for years now. The tie in with the earth and her homeland was masterfully done.

I cannot wait to own a copy of this book.

A slow burn paranormal horror story. It had a lot of great social commentary about being a Cree, and how their people are treated. How monsters feed on their pain and sadness. But it was so very slow, and heavily focused on characters and family building it didn't built the scare factor for me as I hoped it would. Those that love deep character builds and slow burns will enjoy this story.

"In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.

Night after night, Mackenzie's dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina's untimely death: a weekend at the family's lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too - murder of crows stalks her every move around the city, she wakes up from a dream of drowning throwing up water, and gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina - Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.

Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams - and make them more dangerous.

What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina's death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?"

What if your dreams could kill you?

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Pub date: January 10, 2023

I loved the premise of Bad Cree for the pure horror it brought but what really gave this story beauty is the indigenous culture that enfolds it.

Mackenzie is a young Cree woman who has fled her home, avoiding painful past memories. When she begins bringing things back from her dreams/nightmares, she knows there is something supernatural at work. With urging from her friend, she consults an auntie and decides to go home. With the nightmares increasing, Mac must rely on those in her family to drive out the evil that is invading her nightmares.

As I said earlier, this is without a doubt horror but it is so much more. I loved how strongly female character driven this story is and found comfort within Mac’s family, as she did. This is a sure sign of a well-written novel – when I can sink into the story as if I belong. The women in Mac’s family have dealt with grief, loss, racism but they’ve also experienced joy within their culture and family. All of this is sharply felt throughout along with a strong sinister undertone that is looking to destroy the familiar. Beautifully blended!

I’m amazed this is a debut novel and I will be anxiously awaiting what Jessica Johns does next!

My thanks to @DoubleDayBooks for this gifted DRC!

Mackenzie left home shortly after the death of her kokum and before her sister Sabrina's death, but her dreams keep bringing her home. In her dreams, Mackenzie goes back to a weekend at her family's lakeside campsite. When she wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hand, to have it disappear moments later! What???? Is she doomed to have these dreams/nightmares because she is a 'Bad' Cree? Obviously, there is something sinister going on. Her close friend provides support but cannot help as the dreams keep coming. Unsettled and freaked out, she begins receiving text messages which appear to be from her dead sister, Sabrina.

Needing to learn the truth, Mackenzie heads back home as the dreams continue. What happened the night at the lake? Why is she having such vivid and frightening dreams? Why do the dreams seem so real? Mackenzie's family do not dismiss her dreams, they rally around her, and try to help.

There is an uneasy feel to this book which is also seeped in tension and atmosphere. Readers are given more and more information and things to think about each time Mackenzie dreams. Seriously, how does she go to sleep night after night?

This book is full of female characters who all have a part to play. The Cree family of women are dealing with their individual grief, guilt, and their family dynamic. There are also elements of culture, community, and identity. I loved that the author used Cree words in her writing making this book feel even more authentic. This is not the fastest paced book and I usually struggle with books on the slower side, but this one was not a struggle at all. I was intrigued from the beginning with the dreams, the imagery and the weight of grief.

This is an impressive debut novel which blends the supernatural with horror. Jessica Johns is one to watch/read!

While I did not enjoy this book very much due to the issues I had with pacing, structure, and character, I don't think it's a bad book. It just didn't fulfill what I was looking for in an adult book, a horror book, or a mystery/thriller. I wish I liked it more than I do.

I'll start with the things I did like. The parts of the narrative that focused on familial relationships, memories, and the effects of death and grief were extremely well-written and memorable. My favorite part of the book is when Mackenzie describes hearing the sound of her kokum shaking a can of coins after her death, and her memories of the adults playing card games with the kids in the next room over listening. In fact, everything to do with the memories of her kokum and the way Mackenzie's family handled her death were beautifully done, with fantastic prose and good pacing.

Her relationships with her family were also the stand-out part of the book. Her having to navigate the complicated threads of being hurt, hurting others, and trying to heal were realistic, with miscommunications and mistakes from characters that felt natural. I loved that at the end of the book not everything had been wrapped up in a neat bow. Mackenzie acknowledges the mistakes she made with her family and wants to work on healing. 
Characterization


When I started Bad Cree, I was confused. I avoid requesting YA titles on Netgalley because they are usually not for me, and I don't want to give a negative review of something I know I am not in the target audience for. The prose style, the character's maturity, and the structure of the book all came off as YA to me. When I finished the book, it wasn't until I was writing this review that I realized it was supposed to be an adult book. 

It makes sense, to some extent; the main character is, I believe, in her 20s, and her cousin is a year younger, her sister older. While most of the time they act their age, there are moments that seem incredibly immature out of nowhere. For example, when Mackenzie begins to have her dreams, instead of turning to Google, she decides that the best course of action is to watch a bunch of Marvel movies, take notes on them, and then examine herself for bug bites. This was weird and distracting from the narrative--one of those things that took me completely out of immersion. When the three figure out what exactly is haunting Mackenzie, they decide to try and bring it out of her dreams. They do this with no solid idea of what it can do or how to kill it. The thing is, they have access to Google. They Googled to try to figure out what the creature was! All they had to do was add another keyword to the search! It's basic common sense! But they didn't do that for some reason completely unfathomable to me, even after Mackenzie asks how they're going to kill it.

Look. Adult characters can be immature, I understand that. In fact, adult characters should be immature at times. There are moments in Bad Cree where they are immature, struggle with feelings, or make bad decisions in a way that was natural and made sense. But there are moments where the immaturity are so jarring that it takes me completely out of the narrative and feels out of place with previous characterization. 

Narrative Structure and Prose


This was another element that led me to think Bad Cree was a YA book. Not to say the prose is bad, but more so that it echoes elements of YA horror I've read before; elements of exposition dumping, skipping over some dialogue scenes, and a lack of intense or tense horror elements consistantly being built up throughout the narrative in favor of most of the horrific elements being sprinkled in then rushed through in the last two or so chapters.

There were several places where exposition explaining what Mackenzie has been through that could have been handled differently and far more effectively. For example, there is a moment at the beginning after Mackenzie wakes from a dream. After she wakes, the narrative backtracks and summarizes all the dreams before this one. She then calls her friend, Joli, and they talk about the situation. Instead of having the exposition dumped into the narrative, why not have it in this conversation with Joli? As a reader, reading Mackenzie explain it to another person would be far more engaging and understandable than having the narrative flow broken a few pages in with an exposition dump. 

Another spot this happens is with the plan to pull the monster out of Mackenzie's dreams. Kassidy and Tracey suggest the plan mid-chapter, Mackenzie agrees to consider it, and at the beginning of the next chapter she has agreed to it. As a reader, I want to see her thought process. I want to see her weigh the options, consider the danger the monster could pose to her family in the house, try to come up with a plan. Instead she just agrees to it without us seeing any of that. Halfway through that chapter she asks what they're going to do if it works. The plan is, and I quote, that they'll just "jump it." Mackenzie asks if it's that simple, her sister is like "maybe," and Mackenzie just accepts that as an answer. They don't even grab weapons or try to arm themselves. They don't google "how to kill monster." It just seems bizarre that they don't do any of the obvious, basic things that this kind of plan would naturally lead to, which takes me out of narrative immersion, especially as they'd just used google to try and find more information on it.

Horror


While I certainly loved the imagery in places, and liked the final confrontation with the monster, the overall use and effectiveness of horror elements in Bad Cree left something to be desired. I didn't get the intensity of feeling--of being stalked, of being watched, by something wearing your sister's face--from the narrative. Especially when the creature claims it has already been stalking Tracey, from which we only get the mushroom scene and then the flannel is burned and that element is solved immediately. It would have been far more interesting had its influence on Tracey been more gradual, more tense; had it been impossible to burn the flannel so easily (as that would have put extra pressure on in the final confrontation). 

The only moments of horror we get are usually restricted to the dreams, save for at the very end. While her dreams are certainly interesting, the ways in which they encroach upon the real world are more interesting, and I would have loved to see the boundaries between dream and reality played with more. The monster's presence is not a terribly strong one, which I felt was a little disappointing. The monster is, obviously, connected heavily with grief and greed and misery. The descriptions of grief hanging in the halls of the house, of running under the surface, are wonderful. So why doesn't the monster do the same? Why does it not influence anything besides the dreams? I feel that the horror elements could have used a lot more development and intensity.

The novel is described as "gripping" and "horror-laced," neither of which I found particularly accurate to my reading experience. I never felt as though any of the characters were actually in any danger from the monster, whether that be physical, mental, or emotional. From pretty early on in the book, I didn't think the narrative would end unhappily. When they went to confront the monster, I didn't doubt that they would succeed without losing or hurting anyone in the process. For me, there was no feeling of tension because the tension and threat had been kept so solidly in the dream world up until that time I sincerely doubted the monster's ability to actually post a threat. And I was right; Mackenzie killed it, without a scratch on her, her cousin, or her sister.

Johns discusses the importance of dreams in Cree culture in the introduction. She talks about why she wrote this book and what ideas she is pushing against with such a heavy focus on dreams and dreaming in this novel. I want to be clear that that’s not what I have an issue with; my issue isn’t with the dreams themselves. Those were good scenes. Nor is it with the family relationships and handling of grief. My problem is that the narrative fabric doesn’t effectively weave those two things together as strongly as they could have been. The tension between Mackenzie, her family members, her stress, and the supernatural could have worked well if they played off one another better, if the monster was more of a present threat.
Final Thoughts

I gave this book three stars because while it’s a decent novel, it’s not a novel that particularly fulfills what I personally look for in horror, adult fiction, or supernatural mystery/thriller.


If this book's premise sounds interesting and you want an excellent book exploring grief, family, and loss, Bad Cree might be for you. But I can't say this book will ever be one I'll recommend as a horror, thriller, or mystery novel. It just doesn't quite tick those boxes for me. Maybe it will for you.

Bad Cree grabbed my attention right from the beginning with "a murder of crows" and Mackenzie's creepy dream. I knew I was going to be in for a ride. While there were points I felt moved a little slow for my liking, I really enjoyed learning a bit more about Cree culture and the story itself was really interesting with the supernatural and horror aspects. It's certainly creepy and different from anything I've read before.

I also loved the references to crib or cribbage, as it's a game my entire family has loved to play for generations and it's not something you often see in books.

A really interesting debut!

Thank you Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the eARC!
3.5/5 stars

DNF @ 33% :'(
I loved learning more about Cree, and loved the dreams and crows but the writing style bugged me in a personal pet-peeve kind of way. I don't vibe with first person present, I don't vibe with similes, etc. *shrug* No hate toward the story itself though, I might finish at a later date. If I do, I will edit this review to reflect my final thoughts. I wish the author and this book the best!
I will be mentioning it/recommending it to my subscribers on my youtube channel [link below] in my January reading wrap up video which will probably go up 1/31/23
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCElurd9xTifyHtPw5QJmx_g

Sooooooo good. Just an a straight up great horror book. Would love to review a physical copy of this one in full on my insta,