Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. Feather’s first-person narration is punctuated by the killer’s effectively creepy thoughts about his victims, raising tension, but a deus ex machina ending both thwarts earthly justice and cheats readers.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. Issues drive the plot (a subplot concerns homophobia aimed at one of Feather’s friends) in this very brief contemporary novel, making for an informative, swift read but an unsatisfying mystery. Feather tries to get her brother out of jail and find the real killer, putting herself in danger when she tries to lure the killer. They think women in our community deserve to be victimized just because of the colour of our skin.” In fact, Kiowa is erroneously arrested in Mia’s case, launching the mystery plot. Feather’s mom says about people in power: “They believe that we are bringing it on ourselves. Feather and her family and friends are modern, urban Natives whose lives are far from “the rez” but who are aware of the gulf between them and white society. Mia, the second, lives with her neglectful mom and sexual-predator stepfather. Carli, the first to disappear and later mistakenly be ruled a suicide, has lived with many foster families. Her friends, other Aboriginal young women, are not so lucky. The Cree high school student lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with her single, successful mom and her brother, Kiowa, studying to be a doctor. Feather’s life is changed when one friend and then another go missing.

The Missing by Melanie Florence