Coming out January 2023, Bad Cree by Jessica Johns is a horror thriller you don’t want to miss. I enjoyed it so much I immediately recommended it to Kriti, and asked her to join in my Ariel’s Arc discussion/review!
Bad Cree
By Jessica Johns | Goodreads
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—a 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?
Some content notes to be aware of: animal death, body horror, murder, blood, gore, nightmares, death of a sibling, grief, stalking.
Horror Elements
A: As one of my favorite reads this year, Bad Cree starts out with a horrific occurrence in the very first chapter: our main character Mackenzie wakes up with a crow head in her hand, directly correlated to a dream she just had. There are many elements of suspense and horror-filled dread as the plot progresses, and it’s rare for me to be so engaged with the horror elements of a book. Many times I feel on the outside looking in, bored, or feeling like the horror isn’t original. My experience with the horror elements of this book kept me on the edge of my seat throughout.
K: I haven’t read horror in a bit so I was happy to pick up something on Ariel’s recommendation and discuss it with her here. 🙂 Bad Cree had a great start and I love the connection of dreams to horror. Like Moon of the Crusted Snow which is also a indigenous read set in winter, Bad Cree has the right feels. It was well written and the merging of dreams into reality was a really good hook for me.
Characters
As a reader, I felt connected to Mackenzie as she searched for answers. I was hooked on every page and every development of her investigation felt smooth and made total sense. There isn’t a huge cast of characters, so it’s mostly easy to maintain understanding of what Mackenzie is thinking and feeling as she processes her own feelings and reacts to the dream sequences.
I particularly enjoyed the familial aspects of the story. Mackenzie moved away from her home in Alberta to Vancouver city and as the story progresses, she journeys back home to make sense of what is happening to her. The big family setting, the ways the cousins and aunts mingled and supported each other through crisis was heartwarming to see. Working through grief as a family and being able to talk about loved ones who have passed away added a lot of depth to the story.
Themes
This book, while being a horror thriller with an overarching mystery that unfurls, a major part of this book is about grief and loss. Mackenzie felt the need to isolate, and what I loved most about this book is a theme of building community and healing together in nonlinear ways. There are many parts where Mackenzie decides to isolate herself and try not to burden others, and seeing her character arc grow throughout was powerful to me.
Setting
Mackenzie’s Cree culture is a major part of this story, along with how her family’s community grappled with oil towns who came and left in their quiet corner of Alberta. I especially loved how avoiding isolation was a prominent theme of resisting horrors supernatural and physical, and it left me a lot to think about. One of the major reasons that I recommended this to Kriti is because she is familiar with Alberta! Kriti, what did you think about the setting and how did it impact your connection with the story? Since I visited you earlier this year, I was able to picture some of the landscapes in my mind as I was reading, and I appreciated that connection.
I quite enjoyed the connection to Alberta and was also able to get in with a friend who lives in Vancouver about the sheer number of crows there. The landscapes were described well and it was easy to immerse myself in a story set in familiar places.
Truly this book was one of my favorites of 2022, and it was a very fast read for me. If I didn’t have work I probably would have read it in one sitting!
If you’re a fan of mysterious horror/thrillers that have deep and meaningful storylines, Bad Cree is absolutely the book for you. Add this book to your Goodreads shelf.
A huge thank you to DoubleDay books & Harper Collins CA for sending us a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Cover image: Photo by Modesta Žemgulytė on Unsplash
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