BookBrowse Reviews Those Pink Mountain Nights by Jen Ferguson

BookBrowse:

A raw, compulsively-readable, and beautiful portrait of four teens wrestling with race and the influence of money on their small town while also learning what it means to be true to themselves.

Pink Mountain Pizza is a local landmark in Canmore, Alberta, a small ski town marked by low-grade tension between First Nations and white townspeople. Those Pink Mountain Nights is narrated by the store's teenage employees.

Berlin hears the universe sing to her. At least, she used to. Now, it is silent. She keeps going through the motions—scrupulous about responsibility, about keeping her grades up, and about serving the needs of her Indigenous community. But she's broken by the disappearance of Kiki, a friend and fellow Native teen. Cam is Kiki's cousin. His family began breaking when Kiki's mother vanished; his cousin's disappearance finished the job. His mother is trying to earn a college degree; his father drives a taxi. Cam dropped out of school to help provide and care for his younger sisters. Jessie, daughter of a rich, white developer, hates everything about her background and her family's expectations for her.

The novel unfolds over the span of a few nights, as these three discover that their beloved boss and owner of the pizza parlor is "selling out to the colonizers" and set out to do something about it. But the takeover of the restaurant is only the public conflict. One night, Berlin goes outside the pizzeria to take a break and thinks she sees Kiki across the street. The cascade of events set off by this sighting (was it her? or was it wishful thinking?) is the real heart of the story. Over the next few days, the characters confront their biases, their deep secrets, and their fears. They learn to see each other—and themselves—in new ways.

But there's a fourth teen in Those Pink Mountain Nights: Kiki, the missing girl whose gorgeous, poignant poetry is interjected at intervals through the book. As the other three grapple with unfolding romantic attractions, mobilizing the town to prevent the sale of the pizzeria, and their shared grief, Kiki slowly reveals her own story for readers. Ferguson crafts a story so tightly interwoven and intimate in focus that each character cannot help pushing their castmates' stories forward alongside their own.

The author knows exactly what point she wants to make, and is not afraid to paint with a broad brush to do so. Her villains are not subtle. We have a rich, controlling white dad who expects his daughter to toe the line and be a good little wifey. We have a sleazy white teacher who simultaneously grooms and belittles his female Native students.

Ferguson is also clearly committed to including as much representation in her book as possible, spanning race, gender, and disability, both in point-of-view characters and in peripheral ones. All these characters are presented sympathetically, while the white male "colonizers" have zero redeeming qualities. This gives the book a sort of "power to the people" vibe which YA readers will likely find very appealing.

On the other hand, the complexity of the four protagonists and their stories explains the choice to keep the villains and peripheral issues simple. These teens are grappling with questions many adults haven't even thoroughly recognized yet. Where is the line between rousing public support for a beloved Black business owner and treating him like a child? What do you do when the authorities who are supposed to protect you demonstrate that they don't care?

In the midst of all these hard, big-picture questions, they are also trying to figure out their relationships to each other. Berlin and Cam have a long, fractious history. Jessie has a reputation as a "tease." How to tell where friendship ends and attraction begins? What's real and what isn't? What if their beloved, supportive boss isn't who they thought he was?

From questions about sexual orientation to those about how characters relate to their parents, their teachers, and other authority figures, these complex threads are woven expertly by Jen Ferguson. The end result is an engrossing, thought-provoking, and ultimately beautiful book.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in October 2023, and has been updated for the October 2024 edition. Click here to go to this issue.