BAD CREE by Jessica Johns – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
Published by Doubleday Books on January 10 2023
Genres: Adult, Family drama, Magical realism
Pages: 272
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: Less horror and more family drama, Bad Cree is a beautifully written examination of family ties and emotions, with just a touch of otherworldly horror.

The bad inside me was spreading, eating me up. So I left. I left them all. And now I’m supposed to enter that house again. Where the loss of our family has doubled. Kokum and Sabrina, two of its organs. I think coming home is the right thing. But my chest stays clenched and knotted. The trepidation has just as much to do with guilt as with fear of what I’ll see. What kind of sorrow was the house holding in its bones now?

I have to admit Bad Cree was almost a DNF for me, but I pushed through, and ultimately I’m glad I did. This really isn’t horror at all, although there are a couple of scenes that fit that genre. Mostly, this is the story of a family dealing with grief and loss. I think if my expectations had been different, I would have rated this book higher, but I went in expecting horror and that’s not what I got. Still, by the end I was fully invested in the dynamics of Mackenzie’s close-knit family, and the emotional ending bumped up my rating a bit.

The story takes place in a small town in Alberta, Canada and revolves around a Cree family. Mackenzie left her home of High Prairie after her kokum (grandmother) died, and she hasn’t been back since. Even when her sister Sabrina died, nearly a year ago, Mackenzie couldn’t face the sadness of Sabrina’s death, and she didn’t go home for the funeral, even though her family begged her to. But lately she’s been having strange dreams. In the last one, she dreamed she saw Sabrina being attacked by crows, and when Mackenzie woke up, she was holding the severed head of a crow. Mack knows she can’t figure out what the dreams mean by herself, and despite her reluctance, she decides to go home to her family.

Coming home is fraught with emotions and memories, though. Her sister Tracey (Sabrina’s twin) is still mad at her for refusing to attend their sister’s funeral. Mack’s mother and beloved Auntie Doreen are thrilled to see her again, but there is an underlying sense of hurt that Mack knows will be hard to mend. As the family tries to help Mack figure out the meaning behind her dreams, Mack begins to remember long buried memories of growing up in her close-knit Cree family. And when the dreams become threatening, Tracey helps her unravel the mystery of what really happened that night in the forest before Sabrina died, and how a monster from Cree mythology might be connected.

The story starts out very slow, and in fact the pace only picks up at the very end with the appearance of the wheetigo, the mythological Cree spirit who is threatening Mack in her dreams. I’ve always been a little leery of stories that revolve around dreams, so I was taking a chance on this story to begin with. Luckily, the dream sequences worked pretty well for me, but their dreamy quality didn’t do much to help the pacing, unfortunately. The first half of the book is focused on Mack reuniting with her family, and most of these scenes are very “talky,” meaning the characters talk a lot and don’t do much else. Being home brings back lots of childhood memories, and while I loved learning more about Mack’s Cree upbringing and family traditions, I’ll admit my attention started to wander every time one of these memories came up.

On the other hand, I loved the strong bonds among family members and the interactions between Mack and her sister, mother, aunts and cousins. There was such a joyful feeling to the story once Mack arrives at High Prairie, even though the pall of Sabrina’s death still hangs over the house. Being together and helping each other through the bad times is what her family does, and I loved the way they embraced Mack’s arrival, treating her as a family member even though she hasn’t been supportive lately. And the author doesn’t sugar coat the characters’ emotions and reactions when Mack comes home. Each is upset with her to varying degrees, because to them, her refusal to come home for the funeral was a betrayal. Mack has some very uncomfortable conversations, especially with her sister Tracey, and I appreciated that the author made these interactions so believable.

I liked many of the characters. Mackenzie is a young twenty-something woman who doesn’t know exactly what she wants, but she knows that being around her family only makes her grief over her dead sister worse. I also loved her best friend Joli, a non binary character who isn’t in the story much but has a big presence when she is. We get flashbacks of Mackenzie’s childhood and times spent with her kokum, and I loved those scenes. Kokum is nurturing and sweet and tells wonderful stories and teaches the three sisters about the local plant life. In a nice change of pace from other books I’ve read lately, there aren’t any horrible, villain-like characters. These are all just regular people trying to live the best they can.

Johns infuses her story with Cree mythology and beliefs. For example, dreams are extremely important to Cree people, and often predict the future or give warnings. Mack’s cousin Kassidy has had prophetic dreams her whole life, and one of her aunts dreams only in certain colors, which gives her hints about what’s coming. And then there’s the wheetigo, a spirit who feeds on greed and misery. The author ties its presence to the oil industry in High Prairie, illustrating some of the injustices done to indigenous people over the years. The brief moments when the wheetigo takes center stage in the story were unsettling and creepy, and I only wish it had been more of a focus. 

Even though Bad Cree wasn’t exactly the story I was expecting, I’m glad I read it. Jessica Johns’ thoughtful and emotional depiction of Cree family life was nicely resolved at the end and gave me a warm glow.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.