Funeral Songs for Dying Girls

Cherie Dimaline has been especially busy in the last couple years with many new books on the way to bookshelves. Funeral Songs for Dying Girls, her latest YA novel, fits solidly in the sad girl summer vibe.

Winifred is a lonely teenager living in a graveyard with her father, her mother having died during childbirth. Her only connection to her mother’s family came in the form of her Aunt Roberta who sadly has also passed on. Her unusual living situation has kept people from getting close, all but Jake, who seems to have grown into his body over the last year and is making some terrible choices in his friendship with Winifred. When she accidentally summons a ghost, she learns a lot about friendship, love and how to move on.

This was not a hopeful story. Usually I love a great dose of hope in my reading but this story wasn’t that. It sat in its sadness and was achingly beautiful. Cherie Dimaline’s carefully crafted text sunk right into my bones and had me living in the cemetery along with Winifred. Without being explicit, it felt like a commentary or a reflection on the MMIW crisis as well as a story about the different ways in which we grieve loss. It also felt like an examination of the different kinds of losses we experience as we are coming of age. There is not just loss, as in death, but also the ending of friendships and the betrayals by those who we are most closely bonded. There is the loss of experience, in Winifred’s case, the loss of friendship as well as the loss of a first love.

This story was an exploration of different kinds of love, not just resting on the obvious girl likes boy, boy does something stupid, girl likes boy again. There was lots of room for so many different readers to see their experiences reflected back to them, especially YA readers who are going through a time of self discovery.

It’s a beautiful story that lingers in your bones and doesn’t quite release you.