Jessica Mcdiarmid

This is a heartbreaking, difficult-to-read account of just some of the more than a thousand Indigenous women and girls who've gone missing or who have been found murdered along the so-called "Highway of Tears" in western Canada. Jessica McDiarmid does a good job of showing how the continual failure by the RCMP and the Canadian government to take these losses seriously is just one manifestation of a deeply ingrained racism against First Nations People in Canada. (For another, see all the horrific stories currently in the news about the excavation of literally hundreds of graves of Indigenous children in residential schools) Sometimes the transitions between the different parts of the narrative—from accounts of individual cases to contextualising the history of residential schools to interviewing former RCMP officers—are a little choppy. Still a very worthwhile if harrowing read.… (mere)

First thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Wow what an amazing book and stunned that this is the authors debut. An eye opening journey into the lives and the history of Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada. I have heard about the Highway of Tears through some documentaries and such but like most people didn't pay much attention to it.

You need to! As a society we should be ashamed to not only have let this happen but continue to let it happen. The author does a terrific job of balancing the stories of some of the lost souls and their families as well as telling the history of the Highway and the constant struggle of getting action taken.

This is a must read - I couldn't put it down and I recommend you don't either.… (mere)