Anna Horn is not your typical 17-year-old girl. She wears her father's faded overalls to school, embraces her Native American heritage, and tries her best not to care what the other high school seniors think of her. In stark contrast, Grace, her 15-year-old sister, cares what everyone thinks about her and wants nothing more than to distance herself from all things "reservation," especially her weird older sister. Anna works on weekends at the Grand Nacre Casino and Resort as a housekeeper and she's a good employee, so much so that the handsome and charming nighttime manager, Fox Ballard, has recruited her to work with his cleaning crew after school as a way to earn some extra cash.
However, Fox keeps testing her limits in what she's willing to do and whether she will keep quiet about it, and before long, she is involved in something she never wanted to be and she may have stumbled onto something terrible that is happening on the Eighth Floor, where all the high rollers stay. What's worse, Grace has become entangled with Fox and is also working there and now she's gone missing, just like several other Takoda girls have over the last year. Can Anna figure out what has really been happening, with the help of the local reservation police and the nearby Sheriff's office, or will they just chalk up Grace's disappearance to bad habits and big dreams, just like the other girls.
While Anna is searching for Grace and trying to solve the mystery of what has happened to her and the other missing girls, she is also trying to preserve the heritage of the Takoda people, since the tribe's storyteller and keeper of their culture, Miss Shelby, died mysteriously some 10 years before. Miss Shelby was Anna's only adult friend and she saw something special in the child, embracing her differences rather than shunning her. Anna still visits the woman's long-empty trailer, borrowing her books and keeping the stories alive, even if it is just for her alone. Despite her father's urgings for her to suggest a preservation society at a tribal meeting, Anna just can't seem to muster the strength to follow through, especially now that Grace is missing. Without Anna, the stories could be lost forever.
Sisters of the Lost Nation is not just a mystery/thriller that takes place on a reservation. It involves the plight of the Native American as it pertains to being helpless when it comes to the investigation of crimes, as well as the pervasive drug problem, human trafficking, monetary dependence on the casino, the loss of cultural stories and history, and so much more. It's about family relationships and the changes they go through, including children, parents, and grandparents alike. It's about teenaged girls finding their own identities, despite the pressure and ridicule put upon them by classmates. It's about the importance of the songs and stories of a people that can easily be forgotten if there isn't someone in place to remember them and carry them forward for future generations.
While that might seem a bit preachy, it's really not at all. I found the story very interesting, but I will say that the delivery was a bit awkward in the beginning. The story unfolds starting with Anna as a 7-year-old being told a tale by her Uncle Ray about a ravenous cadaver head of a buried chief that was unearthed by grave robbers, only to turn on them and consume them. It then rolls around the reservation looking to devour anyone it comes upon. This story would continue to plague Anna for the next 10 years. However, the present tale bounces between Anna starting to work for Fox Ballard and the time period a few weeks later when Grace goes missing. I would find myself having to flip between pages and chapters to make sense of some of the people being discussed, at least in the early parts until every character was established. Certain characters were just introduced (like Fox Ballard) as if we already knew them, but didn't. I understand that switching between timeframes can be a cool way to reveal information and keep up the sense of mystery, but I just found it jarring in this case. Once I got past that, it was just fine though.
Anyone disturbed by stories with topics like human trafficking needn't be concerned since there are no graphic scenes, only things hinted at, so the delicate way in which Medina handles these topics is quite skillful. Overall, it's a good story and quite eye-opening on multiple levels.
