In Five Little Indians, we follow a group of characters who in one way or another survived being sent to an Indian mission school when they were younger - ripped away from their families, their cultural heritages and made to feel ashamed for being Native American. The characters all have ways of coping from Maisie who finds herself in dangerous situations, Kenny who can't stay in one place for too long, Lucy who falls into motherhood, Howie who confronts his abuser and Clara who finds a way to fight back and help others.

I really appreciated learning about this horrific history of Canada, and one of the things that struck me with this book is what happened to the characters we are following wasn't that long ago - by the time they are turned out of the school (with no life skills, help or money), Lucy and Maisie are in a more modern world even though the activities of what happened tot hem all int he schools feel like it should be 1900s stuff or earlier. The schools reminded me in a way of the mother and baby homes in Ireland - people stuffed away from their families, made to feel shame, not helped and abused by people of the church whose calling should be kindness.

However, unfortunately I felt like everything we got from the characters was too vague or we just didn't spend enough time with each one. It felt for a while that the author/story was favouring Kenny and Lucy (and while the romance was sweet, it felt a bit too saccharine that they always used to glance at each other in the school, and this held onto them both into adulthood when they saw each other again etc) but then Clara got a pretty interesting story and section as well. However Maisie got very little and Howie, and I also felt it odd that Wilf was mentioned, was apparently Lucy's brother but we never see if they reconnect. The timeline confused me as well as it felt we were jumping around all over the place, and suddenly Lucy's daughter was 23 but then we jumped to Howie and I couldn't tell how much later it was for him. The narration of this book also felt a bit stiff and unnatural at times for me as well.