Reviewed by David Jaggart for Readers' Favorite

In The Moth Dreamer by Amy Lynn Farrell, Aubrey is a teenager trying to reconnect with her Ojibwe roots while coming to terms with her newfound, shocking psychic ability․ She’s spending the summer on her family's traditional lands when she finds an old flint arrowhead. Unfortunately, the peaceful atmosphere soon disappears when she has a vision of her cousin, Saagaate, falling to her death at Red Waterfall. When that vision comes true, exactly like she feared, Aubrey is left completely shell-shocked. She is isolated by a secret she’s too scared to tell her Auntie Cynthia or her friends. The stakes get even higher as a dark spirit called a Windigo starts to hunt her, feeding on the pain she is keeping inside. Between dealing with bullies at school, her first crush, and trying to save her friends, Zoe and Laurel, from a car crash she saw coming, Aubrey is stretched way too thin․ How is she supposed to stop a monster when she’s still struggling to forgive herself for Saagaate’s death?

Amy Lynn Farrell’s The Moth Dreamer is a haunting mix of teen drama and Indigenous myths that takes its time setting the scene instead of simply racing through the storyline. The plot is definitely a slow build, but I think that actually makes it better because it shows how grief can linger and change in a person over time. I love the way the author used the Windigo as a physical way to show the trauma the family is going through. The relationship between Aubrey and her grandmother, who acts as a medicine woman and a guide, really caught my attention. It was also interesting to see the jump between the legend in the prologue versus the harsh reality of Aubrey’s school stress and her first crushes. The details are really sharp, especially the frustrating part about the family's ancestral home now being a public park run by government officials․ I recommend this book to readers looking for a memorable but slightly darker YA coming-of-age story.