Funeral Songs for Dying Girls was a lovely book on grief, anger, and growing up and how a teenager handles it. We get to watch Winnifred evolve throughout the book from the moment her and her father are threatened with a move to the eventually resolution of the situation. Throughout the book, there is great imagery about how Winnifred lives her life in routine, not really existing, much like she is a ghost. When she's introduced to Phil, we get to see how Phil brings out growth in Winnifred.

Initially, Winnifred wants to utilize Phil to save her home so that her father and her can continue to live in the cemetery, but as time advances and Win and Phil get to know each other, Win has a change of heart and she must stop the ghost tours from hurting her new friend.

I did find this book slow to start off, but around the middle point, when we get more information on Phil and her life before her death, it picked up. I thought that the way Dimaline wove Phil's story into Win's was elegant and poetic and I loved that Phil was able to help Win come to some sure conclusions of herself and give her the confidence to take the next step in her life. The way that Dimaline weaves hard moments into the story was perfect and there were moments that made me tear up and want to cry and moments that were just tender and sweet.

I love the way Cherie Dimaline writes and Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is another gorgeous book. I particularly love her characters, lovely and flawed and broken but full of hope.

I didn't review this on Goodreads because I wasn't wildly enthusiastic - I did like the main character, but felt distanced from her so it was hard to get too invested.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is a book about grief and moving on, being able to accept change. This all starts with Winifred, whose mother died giving birth to her. She's been cast as the pariah for living in a cemetery, as her father is a cremation assistant, and she doesn't want to leave the cemetery because her mother's ashes are interred there. When the owner of the cemetery suggests that they're going to wind down operations with the crematorium, Wini jumps at the change provided by a ghost tour guide. If she can provide a real ghost for the tours, money will start rolling in, and she can stay. Then she meets a real live ghost and has to decide if it's worth casting this ghost she's getting close to as the boogeyman.

I really liked this, although it has an incredibly slow start. Winifred tends to focus on the tiniest parts of daily life, and Dimaline doesn't let us really get a sense of her relationship with her father, which would have been helpful. I was also a little shaky on the ghost's story. Otherwise the writing is beautiful and I think the book comes together nicely in the end.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is a difficult book to read. Not because the writing is hard, but because the concept is hard.

Winfred lives in a cemetery, because that is where her father works. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her white father keeps her ashes in a suitcase under his bed. Sometimes Win goes out wandering in the cemetary at night, and a few times she has been mistaken for a ghost. The local ghost tour wants to make the cemetery part of his stops, but Windfred has met a real ghost, while wondering, and doesn’t want her to be exploited, even though this would bring in needed money to the cemetery.

And through this all, the ghost tells her stories of her life, and asks what she is. She has no idea. She doesn’t feel she can call herself white, but she knows nothing about her mother’s side of family other than one aunt who was kind to her.

There is a lot of soul searching, and other hard bits going on. Through it all, it makes you think. Recommended for the thinking part. But if you don’t want to think what life and love is, you might not want to dive into this book. Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review

Thanks to Tundra Books and Netgalley for an ARC of this book!

I’m really sad to say this was a DNF for me. I gave it lots of chances, but as I was over 100 pages in with no suggestion of a plot yet, and no characters I felt invested in, I had to let it go.

There seemed to be a distinct drop in writing quality from Dimaline’s other novels. As the author has written one of the best books I’ve ever read (The Marrow Thieves) I was totally shocked to encounter multiple near-incoherent sentences throughout. Dimaline has numerous books coming out this year, and I can’t help but wonder if the quality of this book suffered as a result. I will definitely still be checking out Dimaline’s other books, as I hope this one was a one off mishap rather than the norm.

Maybe someday I’ll give it another go, but certainly not any time soon.

Dimaline captures the complexity of pain beautifully.

There are so many layers to Winifred and this story allows us to experience the pain and honesty head on.

Both the content and writing are amazing.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. Funeral Songs for Dying Girls tells the story of Winifred. She lives above the graveyard and crematorium where her father works and where her mother is buried. She wanders in the graveyard at night and befriends a ghost. When someone sees her, they think the graveyard is haunted. At turns very funny and heartbreaking, this book is an examination of grief and family.

This was a beautiful and spooky little coming-of-age story.  My favorite part of the was Winnie and Phil’s relationship. Incredibly comforting to see their story of resilience and hope that grows within their connection despite their pasts.
That being said there were issues I had with the cadence of the story-telling it took me quite some time to get into it. On top of that, there were too many fatphobic instances for a modern book.

still thankful to have been able to read this ARC

I am glad that I read this book and found the story quite unique. I felt for Winnie and her father and thought that Dimaline's use of the ghost, Phil, to help Winnie deal with the death of her mother was a beautiful concept. That being said, I found this book to be incredibly slow-moving, which made me less invested overall. I feel that my students will struggle to read it and appreciate such a quiet, character driven story so despite the quality of the writing and the powerful meaning of the story, I doubt that many teens will be able to appreciate it.

I really liked the voice in this book, although some sections did feel a little overwritten. I liked Win a lot, and Phil's sections were fantastic.

The story, though, I'm less sold on. There are plenty of beautiful moments, but the Win/Jack/Phil jealousy thing really annoyed me. I don't think Win and Phil got enough nice moments--they spend too much of the story mad at each other. And I found the ending a little underwhelming.

My overall experience of the book, though, was a positive one. The writing is undeniably beautiful, and I loved Win's perspective as a narrator.

A caveat for anyone considering this book: you should know that there are two really in-your-face instances of using a character's body weight as an indication of their laziness/cruelty/lack of sympathy. It's pretty painful and sticks out in a genre where fatphobia is becoming less and less acceptable.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls is a beautiful, funny, sad and spooky coming-of-age story.  

Winnifred lives with her dad in an apartment above a cemetery.  She’s a lonely teen about to turn 16 when she befriends the ghost of a murdered Indigenous girl, Phil.

Winnie and Phil are wonderful characters, and I loved the way Dimaline wrote them as complex people who are able to hope, and not girls defined by their heartbreaking pasts.   

Thank you to Netgalley and Tundra Books for my review copy of this book.

2.5/5 Stars

16-year old Winifred lives in the cemetery with her father where he works. When she was younger, she accidently caused people to believe the cemetery was haunted, as they spotted her around the grounds. Now on the brink of shutting down, Winifred must figure out how to save her home before she is forced to leave. Enter a real life ghost, Phil, a teenaged girl who died many years ago.

I enjoyed the heavy focus on family relationships, the exploration of grief and the self-discovery journey but I just did not vibe with this main character, which made it difficult for me to fully immerse myself in the story. I just did not care about what was happening in her life. I also felt that there was a lot of fatphobia in this, which I wasn't a fan of.

This heartbreaking, novel left me in tears, but full of hope for the wonderful protagonist, sixteen-year old Winifred. We follow her over a summer full of humiliation, loss and grief, but also love and a growing understanding of her identity.

Winifred and her dad live in a cemetery; he works at the crematorium. Winifred’s mother had died giving birth to her; Winifred's dad has been mourning for years, and has consequently put a wall between them, leaving her to figure out how to navigate her difficult teen years mostly alone. She did have her mother’s elderly aunt Roberta for some time, who provided love and support till she died, leaving Winifred mourning and at loose ends, as now she had no remaining connection to stories of her mother, an indigenous woman, and her heritage. Roberta’s daughter Penny, though alive, is a spiteful, occasional presence in Winifred’s life.

Winifred had looked forward to the summer to forge a physical connection with Jack, her sole friend from school, which failed miserably, with Jack’s friends humiliating her online.

Then, the cemetery owner was going to let Winifred’s dad go for decreasing cemetery profits.. Winifred has no desire to leave, as her mother’s ashes are in the graveyard, and the cemetery is Winifred’s place of safety, where she wanders at all times of the day and night.

When someone mistakenly thinks she’s a ghost, a man running ghost tours wants to bring people through the cemetery, giving Winifred hope that this will keep her father’s job safe.

Then she meets Phil, a vibrant, young woman with a somewhat spiky personality. And who is a ghost. Winifred, after her initial terror, begins interacting with Phil, learning about Phil’s life, and death.

Winifred initially sees Phil as a way to save her father’s job, and goes so far as asking for Penny’s help. Which Penny does, but in her own way, co-opting much of the first ghost tour so as to highlight the indigenous people possibly buried here, but more importantly, to ensure Penny creates a new revenue stream for herself, to augment her already shady activities as a spiritualist.

Seeing how Penny’s summoning hurts Phil, Winifred must decide what’s more important: protecting the cemetery and her dad’s job, or her ethics and Phil’s physical manifestation?

Winifred has lot to deal with during this book. Her feelings, mistakes and wants are portrayed unapologetically and honestly. Her pain is raw, as is that of Phil's, whose story is pretty sad. Cherie Dimaline is terrific at balancing the conflicting, big emotions of adolescence, and has crafted a powerful, deeply moving story.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.

I wanted to like this one more. I loved the different topics that were hit on: grief from losing a parent, an absent parent due to grief, messed up family relationships, Native American culture and representation, crossing the line on social media, so many things. At time there was too many things to deal with almost. The social media drama with our main characters best friend felt like it should have been made a bigger deal and should have been a moment with the dad involved. I loved the sweet dad and was glad their relationship was healed over the course of the book. While I enjoyed the narrative and relationship with the friend/ghost it was hard to jump into the ghosts narrative at times. Switching between the two was a not fluid for me. The sexual content was a little much for my taste and there was plenty of foul language. I would recommend this to strong and older readers, but not put on my general HS library shelves in today's climate.

Cherie Dimaline is a season's pass for me. I will ride ALL THE RIDES.

That doesn't mean some of those rides don't make me mildly queasy.

This book is heart-breaking and weirdly uplifting, and tragic and hopeful, and regardless of the book blurb, NOT A GOOD TIME.

The author, though?

Even as you're sobbing, and furious, and anxious, and all-round miserable, she, with her gorgeous prose, deep character insight, and, maybe a little VenCo magical skull-f**ckery? draws you in, stops you from throwing the book into the fire, and makes you fall in love.

Read this book with lots of tissues and your support animal nearby.

Your face will be red and blotchy but you'll be better for it.

8/10

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin House Publishing Canada for this ARC.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House for an advanced readers copy of Funeral Songs for Dying Girls. A really beautiful coming of age novel, loss, love, heartbreak.

This book was engaging and filled with a wonderful story. Though I would say this is not my favorite by this author I still very much enjoyed it.

Win lives in a graveyard. Her dad is in charge of the crematorium and her mom is with them in the form of her ashes. Win doesn't think anything is unusual about her life until she does a presentation about it in elementary school and suddenly becomes an outcast, nicknamed "Wednesday Addams". She's trying to navigate teenagehood, her best friend morphing into a very hot, cool guy, and the possible loss of her living space, as the cemetery tries to stay financially afloat. It's a lot. One particularly frustrating evening, Win calls out in the graveyard for some help. The response is not what she expects, and the presence of a compelling, beautiful ghost in her life makes things a lot more complicated.

I love the way Cherie Dimaline writes. There are always places in her books where I have to stop and put the book down, and sit with what she's just said for a minute. There's an amazing point in this book where she is talking about fear, and the language is both searing and hilarious, reminding us that we are only "a pair of pants and a utensil" away from being very, very primal. There are spots in this book where you laugh out loud, and spots that will make you cry in frustration and anger. For me, that's the Dimaline reading experience.

Win is an incredibly realistic 16 year old girl, particularly one being raised by a largely non-verbal dad. She is twitchy, and all over the place, and a deep thinker, and desperate to be loved. She is compelling and when she feels emotions, Dimaline really makes the reader feel them, too. The parallel story of Phil, the ghost that Win calls up, is beautiful and brutal. Allowing the parallel stories lets the reader engage with two different experiences of Indigenous young women, and lets Dimaline address some of the issues around assuming that the Indigenous experience is monolithic. I felt like the book was a great companion to Cliff Cardinal's play "The Land Acknowledgement", and they would work extremely well in tandem in a Grade 11 Indigenous Voices English class.

There is a lot going on here. Sometimes, I felt like the forward momentum of the story got bogged down in all the places the author wanted us to see. It is a slow starter, but once it's rolling, the ride is pretty remarkable. TW: drug abuse, grief, MMIWG

This book is heartbreaking and beautiful. I loved the writing style, found the story immersive, and I can’t wait to share it with my students!