Some books entertain you.
Some books teach you.
And then some books quietly sit beside you while you’re driving up and down the turnpike, carrying something heavy in your heart — and they change you.
Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom was my first five-star read of the year, and I experienced most of it through audiobook while traveling back and forth to New Jersey to visit my dad. There was something about the rhythm of the narration, the open landscapes, the endurance of the human spirit — it met me right where I was.
This one will stay with me.
About the Book
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Title: Crow Mary
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Author: Kathleen Grissom
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Published: 2023
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Genre: Historical Fiction
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Setting: 19th-century Montana Territory and Canada
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Based on: The real life of Crow woman Goes First
A Bit About the Booker Prize (and Why This Was on My Radar)
I picked up Crow Mary as part of my ongoing goal to read more widely — especially beyond my usual genres and into books connected to major literary awards like the Booker Prize.
The Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world. Established in 1969, it honors the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland each year. Past winners include authors like:
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Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale author)
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Salman Rushdie
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Hilary Mantel
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Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)
While Crow Mary was longlisted for the Booker Prize, what matters more than its award status is that it led me to a story I might not have picked up otherwise.
And that’s the magic of following prize lists — they gently nudge you outside your comfortable reading lane.
Who Was Crow Mary?
Before she was known as Crow Mary, she was Goes First — a Crow woman born into a life shaped by tradition, survival, colonization, and immense cultural upheaval.
Kathleen Grissom brings her story to life through years of careful research and lyrical prose. The novel follows Mary’s journey as she marries a white fur trader and navigates two worlds: her Crow heritage and the encroaching forces of American and Canadian expansion.
It’s not an easy story. It’s not tidy.
It is, however, deeply human.
Through beautiful descriptions and intimate character work, Grissom doesn’t flatten Mary into a symbol — she gives us a full person. A woman who was brave, strategic, loving, flawed, resilient, and fiercely protective of her people.
You feel the vastness of the land.
You feel the cost of survival.
You feel the weight of history pressing in.
Why This Was a Five-Star Read for Me
It wasn’t just the historical scope or the immersive setting.
It was:
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The care in the research.
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The dignity given to a woman whose story could have easily been overlooked.
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The emotional complexity of navigating cultural identity and survival.
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The way it made me sit with discomfort rather than rush to resolution.
Listening to this book while driving — watching winter landscapes blur past — made the experience even more layered. It felt expansive and quiet at the same time.
And I love when a book does that.
Reading Outside Our Norm
If I’m being honest, this isn’t a book I would have naturally gravitated toward in years past. I tend to live happily in my cozy corners of romance, contemporary fiction, and seasonal reads.
But books like Crow Mary remind me that reading can be more than escape. It can be expansion.
Not in a loud, performative way.
Not in a “look at me being well-read” way.
But in a quiet, personal growth way.
Stories rooted in cultures different from our own give us perspective. They invite empathy. They challenge assumptions. They remind us that history is layered and complicated and deeply human.
And that feels important.
Final Thoughts
Crow Mary is powerful without being preachy. Devastating without being manipulative. Beautiful without romanticizing hardship.
It was a discovery I’m grateful for — one that met me during long drives, reflective days, and the beginning of a new reading year.
If you’re looking to stretch your reading life just a little — to step outside your usual shelf and into something immersive, researched, and quietly transformative — I highly recommend this one.
It may not be your typical pick.
But it just might become your next five-star read.
