Sisters of the Lost Nation

Medina’s debut uses monsters found in the dark to bring real-world issues to light. Anna Horn, a senior in high school and a member of Louisiana’s Takoda Nation, is misunderstood by her family and bullied at school. As a Two Spirit person with both a masculine and a feminine spirit, she wonders about her place in life and among her people. Anna is drawn into a mystery when local girls, including her sister Grace, start disappearing from the reservation. She desperately tries to find her sister but is horrified when a disembodied carnivorous head—a monster straight out of her people’s folklore—begins to chase her down. Two Spirit Indigenous narrator Elva Guerra gives voice to Anna, providing her with a youthful tone while also communicating the exhaustion she feels from shouldering her family’s and her nation’s troubles. Medina, a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Nation, offers an emotional glimpse into Anna’s disintegrating family while illustrating larger issues affecting Indigenous communities, including problems introduced by casinos and widespread disappearances of Indigenous women.