Jenny's bored. She married at eighteen and now sits around with only a very part-time retail job to occupy her time, waiting to get pregnant. Prince George, British Colombia twenty years ago was not a place where young women made careers, at least not young women as directionless as Jenny. Her husband works long hours, weeks away from home and she doesn't like her family or anyone she knows, but she is fascinated by the woman with two young children who lives in the house behind hers, in no small part because the woman is Indigenous. They form a cautious acquaintanceship and when Rachelle disappears, Jenny decides that she will find her.

Fireweed is an odd book. The author isn't Canadian, nor does she live in Prince George, although she has spent time there. The novel is recounted from the point of view of a narrator who feel compelled to explain the details of Canadian life that the average American might be unfamiliar with, despite having never left Prince George. Jenny is also curiously disconnected from the place where she has spent her entire life. She has no friends she enjoys spending time with, she doesn't like her family, she doesn't like her husband's family or her husband, really. There is a sense that she looks down on everyone in her orbit as being trashy, but she hasn't found anything she likes more and her utter lack of curiosity about anything that isn't Rachelle is the most interesting thing about her. So a bored lady ineffectually tries to find a missing woman in a half-hearted way and that's the book.

There is, of course, a purpose to the book, to draw awareness to the real and horrific issue of the number of Indigenous woman and girls missing in Canada, and the work of the MMIWG movement. Laudable, sure, but the novel is set decades in the past which makes it seem like a problem from before and Jenny's lack of knowledge and endless returning to racist sterotyping made for sometimes unpleasant reading. Following Jenny as she wonders what the word "Métis" means (unlikely in someone educated in Canadian public schools, in my opinion) or is surprised whenever a First Nations house has a tidy yard or a vegetable garden was less an education than an exercise in frustration.

I'll end with the positive aspects of this book. Lauren Haddad writes proficiently and while this novel was a misstep for her, she may well be worth reading when she turns her attention to a setting she is more comfortable with.

I requested Fireweed by Lauren Haddad on Netgalley, thinking (based on the topic) that it must have been written by someone who's partly Indigenous or at least comes from British Columbia. But that's not the case. The fact that sometimes there's not enough information about the authors on there, especially if it's their first book, makes it all a gamble. If I knew this author wasn't Indigenous, I wouldn't have wanted to read it.

I understand what the author's trying to do in Fireweed, but centering the white woman is not it, and the Highway of Tears is an atrocious tragedy we shouldn't be talking about through how a clueless white woman sees it. I found Jenny to be a complex and quite nuanced character, but it shouldn't have been her that's drawn with so much attention to detail, while the actual victims are more like a backdrop.

It's uncomfortable and unpleasant to be inside the brain of a racist white woman, and it made me feel a lot of secondhand embarrassment and white shame. She does go through some character development: she learns not to use slurs and thinks about what being native to a land means, but there are still an awful lot of harmful stereotypes, and the conclusion of the story kind of undoes all her development.

It's a good character study, but I don't think the book was meant to be that. I also don't want to feel empathy for this ignorant white woman in this situation. I imagine it's quite a challenge to write a book from inside a racist person's mind (unless you're racist yourself 😬), but should we do it? Should we put white people in the center of BIPOC tragedies when it's already like that in real life? Also, there are just too many racist tropes and slurs in this book that made my stomach turn.

The book will be released a week before the National Awareness Day for Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which I found to be in poor taste. I can't help but think that the non-Indigenous author and the publisher are trying to cash in on the memorial day by timing the release like this 😒

If you check other reviews, you'll see most people agreeing with me, so I'd highly encourage everyone to not buy this book!

I was really interested in this book from the synopsis, but found myself disappointed as I continued to read. I stopped about fifty pages into the book because I started suspecting the author might not be from the background they were writing about, and it seemed I was right after doing some research. For such a sensitive topic, I think we need more stories like this, and readers should be reading more challenging books like this, but the execution of this novel didn't sit well with me. I did end up finishing the novel to see what happens, as I wanted to see if my feelings would change, but they did not.

This book was HUGELY problematic for me! Written from a non-Indigenous perspective, the story is about a white woman jealous of a Native woman's children and who goes out of her way to care for them despite their 'trashy' mother. Too many things were wrong with this story than right and I can't recommend it at all.

I was looking forward to this until I realized that an Iraqi American woman (author) is profiting on the trauma of First Nations people and MMIW!
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC

I read the synopsis for Fireweed and thought 'this book is going to blow my mind' and 'this book will probably make me frustrated and uncomfortable that the world is cruel but it is bloody important I read this and educate myself'. 

Unfortunately, I don't think the book blew my mind, and yes it did make me frustrated and uncomfortable about how unfair this world is. But author Lauren Haddad's concentration on the main character Jenny, and the tangential storylines we follow did not put emphasis on the most important thing readers should have walked away with - knowledge and understanding of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls crisis. 

I know part of the point was to concentrate on Jenny's reckoning with the cruelty of the world and what happens to indigenous women on Highway 16, but I found Jenny clouded the important messages and I question any self reflection or racial reckoning. 

I think it's going to take me a while to accurately rate this book or reckon with it, but for now it's 2 stars and I'm going to do my own research into MMIWG.

Thank you NetGalley for this eArc.

White savior narrative, using missing & murdered Indigenous women gratuitously. For these reasons, I will not be supporting this book or this author.

I really liked that this book brings up the fact that indigenous women don’t get the support they should. They go missing at an alarming rate. This book takes you on the side of a white women who decides to help a neighbor, who she initially judges, and gets really invested. I thought the characters were well developed and got the message out about indigenous women. I think it’s definitely worth reading.

I didn’t like this novel one bit. I think I only kept reading because of the writing style. I couldn’t stand the protagonist, Jenny. She is a horrible person. Jenny is ignorant, racist, and a completely clueless human being. There’s no one to root for. Normally I don’t mind an unlikable protagonist but Jenny is insufferable. This book could have been a page turner and deeply profound but it’s just a pointless book about no one learning valuable lessons. A total waste of time.

Initially I dnf'ed this book at a little over 50% because it was honestly just not for me and I could not keep forcing myself to read it. However, after a few days, I ended up picking it up again just for the sake of saying I reached the end of it - which is to say that I did not change my initial opinion about the novel.

I went into this book with the idea that we, as the readers, were getting a powerful story about the missing indigenous women and girls of Highway 16. Instead, what I found was a story about a white woman named Jenny who's incredibly naive, ignorant and racist. She did check her own behavior and of those around her a few times but it felt like she always went back to the same pattern once again.

I was hoping to read a character arc, which we briefly get, but the ending made it seem like Jenny just went back to her own ways like in the begining which made it very frustrating. I do somehow see what the author was trying to do in her book but it felt like a failed opportunity to give the indigenous community a voice after being voiceless for so long.

The novel felt more like a character study on an uneducated and privileged white woman and it was disappointing to see the indigenous community once again taking the back seat to give space to white people.

This is an exploration into indigenous communities and while there is a lot of criticism about the way this was handled and the chosen publish date for this release, I found it good if tough to read.

The girl just can't help herself........

I don't think that I have come across a female lead character that exasperated me to this extent in eons. I am almost lost for words.

Lauren Haddad's intent for this debut novel just rolled off the planet into oblivion. From the synopsis we are led to believe that at the core would be a light shining on the missing Indigenous women and girls along Highway 16. The story takes place in Prince George, Canada.

We meet Jenny Hayes, a young woman in her twenties, who has been trying to get pregnant for five years. Motherhood eludes her. Her husband, Sam, works in the mines and is gone for two weeks at a time. Jenny's mother is a real piece of work who goes through boyfriends like pickin' petals off a flower. Their relationship is a fragile one.

Now here's where the wheels veer off the road. Jenny has lived across the street from an Indigenous woman for five years. They've had no interactions. Now all of a sudden Jenny notices her and wishes to be friends. Rachelle goes missing.

Lauren Haddad chisels Jenny into one naive woman who doesn't have a clue as to how to go about finding Rachelle. Her husband and her friends are a carnival of racist flatliners. Jenny turns over crucial evidence to the police who make no attempt to find Rachelle because she is an Indigenous woman. Jenny even flubs her meeting with another Indigenous woman who might be helpful. Throughout the storyline, Jenny falls asleep. Jenny slops ketchup on herself. Jenny takes off in her car without a plan in place. Then all of a sudden, Jenny is looking for her father.

Instead of the draw of this book being in regard to the plight of Indigenous women, we get non-stop Jenny episodes. We know what Jenny eats day after day. It was all about Jenny. Haddad should have had chapters reflecting Rachelle. Rachelle simply became a cardboard figure in the background. The storyline suffered greatly because of this.

Fireweed is a wasted opportunity. Period. If you're looking for a voice here in a deep response to these missing women and their grief stricken families, you won't find it here. But what you will find is......Jenny.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Astra House and to Lauren Haddad for the opportunity.

This novel offers an intimate character study of a woman grappling with her own assumptions and prejudices, set against a vividly described backdrop that captures the quiet routines and tensions of suburban life. While the portrayal of the main character is compelling and complex, I found the book’s broader framing—particularly its engagement with the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG)—to be troubling. The story centers a white woman’s perspective and emotional journey while only lightly touching on the systemic violence and indifference that define the real-life context it draws from. The narrative also leans heavily on the lead’s personal transformation, which risks overshadowing the far more urgent realities facing Indigenous communities. While the novel may aim to critique passive complicity, it often lingers too long on the feelings of those adjacent to injustice rather than those most affected by it. In that sense, I remain unsure of what the book hoped to contribute to this conversation, and wish it had made more space for the voices and experiences at its heart.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Fireweed by Lauren Haddad is a beautifully haunting and thought-provoking novel that explores the complexities of identity, trauma, and the human condition. From the first page, Haddad captures the reader's attention with her lyrical prose and vivid descriptions, drawing you into the world of her protagonist, whose journey is both personal and deeply universal.

The story follows a character grappling with the remnants of a traumatic past, navigating the challenges of both internal and external conflict. Haddad’s portrayal of emotional turmoil is raw and poignant, making it impossible not to empathize with the protagonist's struggles. The themes of loss, healing, and self-discovery are explored with sensitivity and depth, giving the novel an emotional weight that lingers long after you’ve finished reading.

What truly sets Fireweed apart is Haddad’s exquisite writing. The language is elegant yet accessible, and her ability to capture the nuance of human experience is truly impressive. Each sentence feels purposeful, adding layers of meaning to the narrative. The prose is rich with imagery, and the natural world, particularly the titular fireweed, serves as a powerful metaphor throughout the book, symbolizing both destruction and renewal. The setting becomes more than just a backdrop; it plays an integral role in the emotional landscape of the story, further enhancing the themes of growth and transformation.

The character development in Fireweed is exceptional. Haddad crafts a protagonist who is deeply relatable despite their flaws and contradictions. Watching this character evolve over the course of the novel is both heartbreaking and inspiring, as they wrestle with the ghosts of their past while trying to create a future for themselves. The secondary characters are equally well-developed, each one adding depth to the protagonist’s journey and contributing to the overall emotional complexity of the book.

While Fireweed is undeniably an emotionally heavy read, it is also ultimately a story of hope. It is about the resilience of the human spirit and the possibility of finding light even in the darkest of times. Haddad balances the heavier moments with a sense of beauty and grace, making this novel a poignant exploration of both suffering and healing.

It's really hard to review this after seeing all of the valid criticism it's receiving. Even if there were well intentions behind it, it might have been executed in the wrong way.

This novel was truly engrossing and uncomfortable in a very satisfying way, I really enjoyed experiencing it.

This book—while being a mystery—is an exploration into the marginalization of women. Specifically, the women of First Nations people who daily experience the “Us vs. Them” mentality of living within and near the white people who have the power. The Indigenous specific racism drives the discrimination, racist misogyny, and violence that First Nations women experience. Assumed to be alcohol and drug dependent prostitutes, they are diminished to a status where its acceptable to perpetrate social, judicial, and physical abuse.

Jenny—by her own words--is white trash. Lonely and alone, she is desperate for a child of her own. She lives with her mostly absent husband, works part-time, and babysits the neglected children of her mom’s latest boyfriend. She’d like to approach her neighbor of five years, Rochelle, to set up a play date for the children she babysits, and Rochelle’s daughters. However, Jenny is a product of her racist upbringing, and Rochelle is a First Nations woman. By the time Jenny is ready to approach Rochelle, the young mother has disappeared; left behind are her daughters. Knowing Rochelle would never abandon her children, she reports her missing to the police who promptly ignore her. At the same time, a white girl goes missing which garners widespread reporting and searches. The hypocrisy does not go unnoticed.

This is a mystery with a social conscience. It is filled with obtuse characters spewing racial rhetoric. It should be an eye opener to one’s own beliefs. However, the lack of Indigenous, main characters is a problem for me; it is their story after all. Many First Nations women have gone missing and/or murdered along the Highway of Tears (a name given to a stretch of highway that goes through the book’s setting), and it is this that our author chose to be the center her (Jenny’s) story. I see why Rochelle would go missing, but I wish there was more development of her as a person beyond being a plot device. She—and her community—deserve more. This would also give more weight to the lengths Jenny goes to to find her. It would also go far in humanizing Rochelle.

Why is the book called Fireweed? Fireweed is a flowering perennial native to the northern hemisphere that grows well in areas that have been devastated by fire. Due to its underground root growth, one plant can cover a large area of land. The plant is an apt metaphor for First Nation’s women: they thrive in even the worst situations, are often thought to be invasive, and their value—like the roots—is unseen.

I would like to thank Astra House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this novel.

The author of Fireweed described her motivation for writing the novel as a response to the “injustice of it all”—the systemic racism, corruption within the RCMP, and ingrained prejudice against Indigenous people in the North. Haddad wanted to “lift a mirror to both our fascination with missing women and girls and the ways in which we can (often unwittingly) use the injustices faced by marginalised communities to confirm our own goodness.” Through her protagonist, Jenny, she interrogates her investigative motivations—do they really come from a desire to “do good,” or from a self-preoccupation to centre herself and prove her own blamelessness?

If we read Fireweed with this in mind, then maybe it is easier to see what Haddad is trying to achieve. However, I agree with other readers who argue that she was not the right person to tell this story. She admits she had never visited the city where the novel is set before she started writing, has no Indigenous background, and no firsthand experience with First Nations communities. As a result, her attempt to expose injustice ultimately comes across as misinformed and, paradoxically, perpetuates the very harm she set out to critique.

The novel employs harmful stereotypes to depict Jenny’s and other characters’ views of Indigenous people. Rather than interrogating and deconstructing these biases, Haddad leaves them unchallenged, using them as explanations for Indigenous characters’ behaviours. Even as Jenny grows to like her Native neighbour, Rachelle, it is glaringly obvious that the things she likes about Rachelle are the ways she assimilates to Eurocentric Canadian culture, the ways in which she is not like “them” but more like Jenny, something Jenny can recognise and feel comfortable with, reinforcing the oppressive idea that Indigenous identity must be erased or diluted to be accepted.

Worse still, the suffering of Indigenous women in the novel serves only as a backdrop for Jenny’s personal struggles. The novel centers a white woman’s perspective, sidelining the larger systemic crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and the horrors of the Highway of Tears. These tragedies become secondary to Jenny’s journey of personal growth, a journey that ultimately leads nowhere. By the novel’s end, Jenny does a complete reversal, returning to her life with little regard for the injustices she was once so indignant about, the fates of Rachelle and the other victims mostly forgotten or, for want of a better word, ignored. This perfectly illustrates how white privileged voices dominate discourse surrounding marginalised groups—picking up their plights simply to discard them when a better distraction comes along.

The novel does not offer justice or a meaningful resolution for Rachelle or the other Indigenous women who continue to suffer under this corrupt system.
Jenny’s investigation is exposed for what it truly is: a search for herself, as she wrongly places herself at the centre of a tragedy that does not belong to her.

I understand that Haddad’s intent was to use Jenny as a way to expose how white privilege often dominates discussions about marginalized communities. However, in writing this book, she unwittingly commits the same mistake—centering her own perspective rather than amplifying Indigenous voices.

What we truly need are more books written by Indigenous authors—stories that authentically portray the ongoing discrimination, violence, and injustices their communities endure. Until then, literature that attempts to speak for them from a detached, privileged perspective risks doing more harm than good.

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the ARC.

I did not finish this, but had high hopes. Couldn’t get past the flaws of the main character which seem to hold her back so strongly.

A debut fiction novel, Fireweed (2025) by Lauren Haddad is based on actual historical events and the tragic murder and disappeared of indigenous women and girls in Canada. Jenny Hayes is neighbours with Rachelle and her two daughters in Prince George, Canada. When Rachelle is the second women to disappear whilst on Highway 16, Jenny decides to investigate. An all too slowly unfolding tale, which fails to deliver on the potentially poignant fictionalising story of the real-life British Columbia ‘highway of tears’ - where too many indigenous women and girls were murdered or disappeared. Unfortunately, the characters were somewhat one dimensional and the story lacked real substance, making it a disheartening one star read rating. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given. With thanks to Astra Publishing House and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes.