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Grievers #3
Ancestors
Community ideals and magic clash in this follow-up to Grievers and Maroons by adrienne maree brown.
Ancestors is the powerful conclusion to adrienne maree brown's Grievers trilogy—a story of how life blooms amid tragedy and hate. In the wake of a mysterious pandemic known as Syndrome H-8, the survivors of a ravaged and isolated Detroit are building a future inside the network of deserted skyscrapers that define the city’s skyline. Dune’s magic keeps a lush green wall encircling the community, and while some settle inside its safety, others grow desperate to get out, fueling the tension between shelter and confinement. As Dune’s power blossoms and her connection to the spirits of the departed deepens, she must learn how to balance the needs of her people, both living and dead.
Ancestors is the powerful conclusion to adrienne maree brown's Grievers trilogy—a story of how life blooms amid tragedy and hate. In the wake of a mysterious pandemic known as Syndrome H-8, the survivors of a ravaged and isolated Detroit are building a future inside the network of deserted skyscrapers that define the city’s skyline. Dune’s magic keeps a lush green wall encircling the community, and while some settle inside its safety, others grow desperate to get out, fueling the tension between shelter and confinement. As Dune’s power blossoms and her connection to the spirits of the departed deepens, she must learn how to balance the needs of her people, both living and dead.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 10, 2025
23 people are currently reading
255 people want to read
About the author
Adrienne Maree Brown
27 books2,764 followersadrienne maree brown is the author of Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. She is the cohost of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia’s Parables podcasts. adrienne is rooted in Detroit.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 25, 2025
What a moment in time to read this book, which feels like one possible blueprint for a way for society to start over again, to live in community and in harmony with the land. Like an answer to the question "What if we could do things right?" This book is messier and more disjointed than the two previous novellas but in a way that feels authentic to the content. Because rebuilding community and recovering from a plague (and the oppressive grief that followed) could be nothing but messy and disjointed. Between the author's beautiful use of language and the clear connection to Octavia Butler's work, I found myself highlighting passage after passage and writing quotes down in a notebook.
If you are a leftist who still feels hope (or is looking to find hope) in these challenging times but doesn't want to gloss over the hard stuff, I highly recommend this trilogy. It got me thinking and feeling in new ways.
And here is a small selection of quotes I highlighted and thought a lot about:
"most people, at some point, they become aware that there's one true binary in this world. you are either mending or breaking the future. most of us are doing both at the same time because we aren't designed to hold one half of a contradiction."
"i didn't know what it felt like to be seen - you don't even really know what it is like to be alive until someone sees you and looks at you as both an object they want in a soul they need."
"There is no right time, there's just wasted time."
"Part of colonizer legacy is that we have forgotten how to think. How to ask questions. How to see ourselves and others with compassion. How to care for ourselves as part of the land. You have to think something is valuable to treat it with care."
"Now we sit together as creatures who have survived being hunted by the same predator. And the predator is not the body, the white body, the white man. The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the earth. And this predator hunts us from within, you know. It allows for this violent dehumanization. To get to the place where someone takes the time and uses their intelligence to create a method for killing others - not for food, not for honor, just for some sense of domination - that is always a tragedy."
"And it gave us a chance, it gives us a chance to practice something. I watched my parents have all the best ideas about how we can move forward, about how humans could be with each other, but we were always under one attack or another. There was always a distraction and something else to handle. They never got a chance to just see what was possible, how far we could grow."
I received a digital Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley and AK Press in exchange for an honest review.
If you are a leftist who still feels hope (or is looking to find hope) in these challenging times but doesn't want to gloss over the hard stuff, I highly recommend this trilogy. It got me thinking and feeling in new ways.
And here is a small selection of quotes I highlighted and thought a lot about:
"most people, at some point, they become aware that there's one true binary in this world. you are either mending or breaking the future. most of us are doing both at the same time because we aren't designed to hold one half of a contradiction."
"i didn't know what it felt like to be seen - you don't even really know what it is like to be alive until someone sees you and looks at you as both an object they want in a soul they need."
"There is no right time, there's just wasted time."
"Part of colonizer legacy is that we have forgotten how to think. How to ask questions. How to see ourselves and others with compassion. How to care for ourselves as part of the land. You have to think something is valuable to treat it with care."
"Now we sit together as creatures who have survived being hunted by the same predator. And the predator is not the body, the white body, the white man. The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the earth. And this predator hunts us from within, you know. It allows for this violent dehumanization. To get to the place where someone takes the time and uses their intelligence to create a method for killing others - not for food, not for honor, just for some sense of domination - that is always a tragedy."
"And it gave us a chance, it gives us a chance to practice something. I watched my parents have all the best ideas about how we can move forward, about how humans could be with each other, but we were always under one attack or another. There was always a distraction and something else to handle. They never got a chance to just see what was possible, how far we could grow."
I received a digital Advance Reader Copy from NetGalley and AK Press in exchange for an honest review.
Want to read
January 26, 2025I will see this series through... I was pretty unhappy with the second installment, but I think I want to see how things end up.
August 27, 2025
This was incredible -- built on the first two and took it over the top with poignant and inspiring things to say about grief and love (including emotionally and psychologically complex and touching telling of polyamorous love story(ies)).
46. […] we looked at each other like scholars. i didn’t know what it felt like to be seen – you don’t really even know what it is like to be alive until someone sees you and looks at you as both an object they want and a soul they need. It matters, to be wanted that way. It mattered to me.
53. Rio looked distraught, the closest Dune had ever seen them to tears. “Isn’t it love? Isn’t love about staying? Unconditionally? No matter what comes, no matter what conditions, no matter the temptations -- isn’t that love?”
“Not the kind that you and I could have.” Dune felt heartbreak open up underneath her, dropping from fantasy into reality. “You and I tasted freedom, Rio. We know that love can be freedom. I know you know that.
63. And the predator is not the body, the white body, the white man. The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the Earth.
70. maybe that’s why we’re still sitting here.
maybe we’re here in this halfway house of the soul because we weren’t good enough at loving, or good enough at organizing, or good enough at gathering people to move towards a compelling future.
maybe i didn’t grieve well enough all that i lost.
73. Hoka was skillful at disagreeing while staying connected.
86. She could feel that the tree was lonely, and hardworking. That it kept growing because it wanted to b e close to others, which was hard to do as a tree in the middle of a city.
The tree had so much to tell her.
88 “Stay calm,” he kept his hands on her in a grounding way. “I want to do something that might be fun or unfun. I just want to do it with you.” […]. Dune was soft with him, a softness she had never known she could enjoy.
93. “Shit was so dangerous, babe. Like, I had to be aroused by the taboo of it all. I had to develop all these faces and voices, none of them really me. I had to survive, with no one to hold me. […]
Dawud shook his head. “For years, I found men who would fuck me. That was easy. But it’s been hard finding men to hold me. Or, if they would hold me, they wanted to get married or act like we were. They wanted my freedom. Richard just wanted to hold me.”
[…]. She felt worlds between them, conversations of possession and ownership and freedom and marriage and commitment and love and lust, all touched but somehow unexamined, as if everyone would lose something precious if they said what they really did and didn’t want.
98-9. our system was devoid of serotonin, empty of anything that could help me see a reason to live. this was a chemical dishonesty. we wanted to live. we wanted everyone in the world to want to live, to have lives good enough to want them.
110. now is always available. now, we are writing to you, helping you, in ceremony with you, watching you sleep, watching you have mediocre banter with a new lover while dreaming of more. feeling the small wounds of dehumanization open, soul spilling out of you in droplets. feeling the loneliness of surviving, listening to you complain, wishing you would ask for help.
139 i wanted it to be ok to feel so much. […] god told me that so far the experiment of humanity has failed, but she’s learning a lot.
170. There is enough of everything for everyone, as long as everyone dies.
171. "[...] You don't really understand what life is if you don't grasp its random brevity. And once you do, you have to grapple with whether you'll ever love again. It is incredibly brave to love when you know what grief is. Every time, in every way, because you fall in love knowing that there will be grief in the future and you dig deeper and deeper, knowing that space will be full of grief one day."
181-2 we don't know that this person we are opening our heart to will break it. we don't know that this person we are showing our broken heart to could mend it. we don't know it isn't meant to be a grand production of suffering. we don't know how simple a good life is.
we don't know that we are perfect already. we don't know that this is exactly how it's supposed to go, and we don't have to battle for our lives. we don't know that true love always leads to justice.
we don't know who we are. we don't know that everyone else can already see us. we don't know that there is no winning, just fully experiencing.
we don't know much.
184. Home is wherever you hold that which holds you.
188. You will have to harness that rage for your highest good and highest work. But first you must feel it.
218 And my mom loved to sing. She didn't think she was good at it, but she said it was necessary. Singing, feeling a song inside and letting it out, is necessary.
219. [...] there's so much more life in everything than I understood before. Under the noise, under the decay, under the sadness, it's just life, a little green growth on everything.
222. [...] he wasn't running from her. He just had to be able to run. She could be hurt all day if she wanted to, but she had no reason to be angry. As the truth moved through her it found all the parts of her coiled around that anger.
256. Held by the breath, they all felt the freedom of survivors, of being able to decide for themselves how to move into the future -- as a crisis, as a possibility, as a home. They sang it, over and over, until the water took the song away on the waves.
258. until we learn that life must be protected and danced towards. until we understand that nothing miraculous is promised. [...] a different small group of humans are flying and growing in every direction, dandelions blown, mycelium running, each holding the structure for surviving apocalypse and seeding a functional community within.
259 We begin by listening; we stay curious.
We let love lead.
259
46. […] we looked at each other like scholars. i didn’t know what it felt like to be seen – you don’t really even know what it is like to be alive until someone sees you and looks at you as both an object they want and a soul they need. It matters, to be wanted that way. It mattered to me.
53. Rio looked distraught, the closest Dune had ever seen them to tears. “Isn’t it love? Isn’t love about staying? Unconditionally? No matter what comes, no matter what conditions, no matter the temptations -- isn’t that love?”
“Not the kind that you and I could have.” Dune felt heartbreak open up underneath her, dropping from fantasy into reality. “You and I tasted freedom, Rio. We know that love can be freedom. I know you know that.
63. And the predator is not the body, the white body, the white man. The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the Earth.
70. maybe that’s why we’re still sitting here.
maybe we’re here in this halfway house of the soul because we weren’t good enough at loving, or good enough at organizing, or good enough at gathering people to move towards a compelling future.
maybe i didn’t grieve well enough all that i lost.
73. Hoka was skillful at disagreeing while staying connected.
86. She could feel that the tree was lonely, and hardworking. That it kept growing because it wanted to b e close to others, which was hard to do as a tree in the middle of a city.
The tree had so much to tell her.
88 “Stay calm,” he kept his hands on her in a grounding way. “I want to do something that might be fun or unfun. I just want to do it with you.” […]. Dune was soft with him, a softness she had never known she could enjoy.
93. “Shit was so dangerous, babe. Like, I had to be aroused by the taboo of it all. I had to develop all these faces and voices, none of them really me. I had to survive, with no one to hold me. […]
Dawud shook his head. “For years, I found men who would fuck me. That was easy. But it’s been hard finding men to hold me. Or, if they would hold me, they wanted to get married or act like we were. They wanted my freedom. Richard just wanted to hold me.”
[…]. She felt worlds between them, conversations of possession and ownership and freedom and marriage and commitment and love and lust, all touched but somehow unexamined, as if everyone would lose something precious if they said what they really did and didn’t want.
98-9. our system was devoid of serotonin, empty of anything that could help me see a reason to live. this was a chemical dishonesty. we wanted to live. we wanted everyone in the world to want to live, to have lives good enough to want them.
110. now is always available. now, we are writing to you, helping you, in ceremony with you, watching you sleep, watching you have mediocre banter with a new lover while dreaming of more. feeling the small wounds of dehumanization open, soul spilling out of you in droplets. feeling the loneliness of surviving, listening to you complain, wishing you would ask for help.
139 i wanted it to be ok to feel so much. […] god told me that so far the experiment of humanity has failed, but she’s learning a lot.
170. There is enough of everything for everyone, as long as everyone dies.
171. "[...] You don't really understand what life is if you don't grasp its random brevity. And once you do, you have to grapple with whether you'll ever love again. It is incredibly brave to love when you know what grief is. Every time, in every way, because you fall in love knowing that there will be grief in the future and you dig deeper and deeper, knowing that space will be full of grief one day."
181-2 we don't know that this person we are opening our heart to will break it. we don't know that this person we are showing our broken heart to could mend it. we don't know it isn't meant to be a grand production of suffering. we don't know how simple a good life is.
we don't know that we are perfect already. we don't know that this is exactly how it's supposed to go, and we don't have to battle for our lives. we don't know that true love always leads to justice.
we don't know who we are. we don't know that everyone else can already see us. we don't know that there is no winning, just fully experiencing.
we don't know much.
184. Home is wherever you hold that which holds you.
188. You will have to harness that rage for your highest good and highest work. But first you must feel it.
218 And my mom loved to sing. She didn't think she was good at it, but she said it was necessary. Singing, feeling a song inside and letting it out, is necessary.
219. [...] there's so much more life in everything than I understood before. Under the noise, under the decay, under the sadness, it's just life, a little green growth on everything.
222. [...] he wasn't running from her. He just had to be able to run. She could be hurt all day if she wanted to, but she had no reason to be angry. As the truth moved through her it found all the parts of her coiled around that anger.
256. Held by the breath, they all felt the freedom of survivors, of being able to decide for themselves how to move into the future -- as a crisis, as a possibility, as a home. They sang it, over and over, until the water took the song away on the waves.
258. until we learn that life must be protected and danced towards. until we understand that nothing miraculous is promised. [...] a different small group of humans are flying and growing in every direction, dandelions blown, mycelium running, each holding the structure for surviving apocalypse and seeding a functional community within.
259 We begin by listening; we stay curious.
We let love lead.
259
Want to read
May 4, 2025I absolutely LOVED the first in the Grievers Trilogy. Excited to see a 3rd installment!
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.
June 19, 2025
What a lovely and powerful conclusion to this story. No spoilers, but I’d follow Dune and co anywhere. Love this anthem to the possible, if we allow our grief to live.
August 28, 2025
This book was incredible, life-changing, beautiful... I am going to read this again for sure
July 4, 2025
“we live through the unimaginable, that's what it means to be human. what matters is finding your own peace inside of that. which is impossible because the unimaginable is humanity, it is the result of our existence. so most people, at some point, they become aware that there's one true binary in this world. you are either mending or breaking the future.”
- from "Ancestors," the third book in the "Grievers" triology
“The political conditions of the country could be simplified to the willfully ignorant vs the terrified frozen.
The willfully ignorant were working to turn back any protection of human rights; they had a chokehold on the state of Florida, where Marta and her parents had evacuated in the first rush of the virus. The terrified frozen were dissociated, struggling to find the courage to fight back, though they loved to point in terror at what was happening, show they understood it.”
Oh, adrienne maree brown, thank you for this book. I had no idea how much I needed this culmination of your trilogy right now. It made me yell out loud in places and recognize so much of myself and our country in the pages.
More amazing quotes below. Including a song spell that I am trying hard to memorize.
"I promise you this, my wife taught me this when she was dying: you take nothing with you but your love." There were several affirmative moans and mmhmms amongst the audience. One blindfolded woman, slender and holding tight to her elbows in a threadbare cardigan, litted a hand up to the sky in praise.
"Yes, I know you know what I mean," Kat continued. "And we don't stop loving. We never stop. Some ancestor whispered into my ear. She said, 'Our love makes the dirt. Our love sways the branches. Our love burns the cedar. Our love pours down on you as we grieve for you. What you grieve is grieving you! Without a body to weep from, imagine!"
“We are of this place. Our ancestors and our unborn and our future are the ecosystem of this place. We collaborate with seven generations of spirit to make every decision. We treat Earth like our skin, our blood, our breath, and our lives, because it is.
We begin by listening; we stay curious.
We let love lead.
Our boundaries allow us to love ourselves and each other.'
We are free to do anything that does not cause harm to, or limit the freedom of, another.
Whenever problems arise, we seek the insight and leadership of people already working on relevant solutions.
Whenever distrust arises, we seek connection or boundary without judgment.
We add to the wilderness. Help everything grow.
We generate our abundance, our longevity, and our safety, together.”
Thank you for every breath I take
Thank you for every day you make happen for me—I know it's a miracle-MIRACLE
Thank you for all the Love I feel
Thank you for showing me you're real inside my life / I know I'm so blessed
I'm so blessed
Thank you for every heart that breaks thank you for all the love it takes to give this life a chance—
I am grateful I am grateful
- from "Ancestors," the third book in the "Grievers" triology
“The political conditions of the country could be simplified to the willfully ignorant vs the terrified frozen.
The willfully ignorant were working to turn back any protection of human rights; they had a chokehold on the state of Florida, where Marta and her parents had evacuated in the first rush of the virus. The terrified frozen were dissociated, struggling to find the courage to fight back, though they loved to point in terror at what was happening, show they understood it.”
Oh, adrienne maree brown, thank you for this book. I had no idea how much I needed this culmination of your trilogy right now. It made me yell out loud in places and recognize so much of myself and our country in the pages.
More amazing quotes below. Including a song spell that I am trying hard to memorize.
"I promise you this, my wife taught me this when she was dying: you take nothing with you but your love." There were several affirmative moans and mmhmms amongst the audience. One blindfolded woman, slender and holding tight to her elbows in a threadbare cardigan, litted a hand up to the sky in praise.
"Yes, I know you know what I mean," Kat continued. "And we don't stop loving. We never stop. Some ancestor whispered into my ear. She said, 'Our love makes the dirt. Our love sways the branches. Our love burns the cedar. Our love pours down on you as we grieve for you. What you grieve is grieving you! Without a body to weep from, imagine!"
“We are of this place. Our ancestors and our unborn and our future are the ecosystem of this place. We collaborate with seven generations of spirit to make every decision. We treat Earth like our skin, our blood, our breath, and our lives, because it is.
We begin by listening; we stay curious.
We let love lead.
Our boundaries allow us to love ourselves and each other.'
We are free to do anything that does not cause harm to, or limit the freedom of, another.
Whenever problems arise, we seek the insight and leadership of people already working on relevant solutions.
Whenever distrust arises, we seek connection or boundary without judgment.
We add to the wilderness. Help everything grow.
We generate our abundance, our longevity, and our safety, together.”
Thank you for every breath I take
Thank you for every day you make happen for me—I know it's a miracle-MIRACLE
Thank you for all the Love I feel
Thank you for showing me you're real inside my life / I know I'm so blessed
I'm so blessed
Thank you for every heart that breaks thank you for all the love it takes to give this life a chance—
I am grateful I am grateful
August 26, 2025
To say that this book was inspirational is an understatement. All three, but specifically this book will be one that I return to often, in my mind, heart and to retrace some quotes, ideas, and ways of communicating. I'm deeply impressed by how amb translates their community organising work and political theory into tangible prose. I learned so much from how (dead and alive) characters speak to and about each other, how amb manages to describe time as both linear and simultaneous, human life as both in- and interdependent. Weaving change as god and love as lifeforce into the narrative through crisp character development, magic seeping through empirical observations of the earth. I was reminded of Octavia Butler in how the characters are shaped perfectly in their imperfection. How sometimes you wanna shake them and then remember that none of us come in perfection, but are truly that if we embrace the difficult, the anxious, the sad that comes with feeling alive. A learning from and with the honoring of what nature (and humans) have the potential to give and be, individually and in community.
There's no hierarchy of "better or worse" necessary when it comes to books (or anything), but this one will most certainly stay close to my heart. Thank you!
There's no hierarchy of "better or worse" necessary when it comes to books (or anything), but this one will most certainly stay close to my heart. Thank you!
July 27, 2025
Summer vacation means I could binge read this trilogy. As soon as I finished each book, I moved immediately to the next book. As a result, I feel I can only write a review of the trilogy as a whole and not the individual books.
David Naimon, Between the Covers podcast, did a fantastic job interviewing the author. As usual, his interview compelled me to read this series. It also helped that I was going to visit Detroit this summer. This is the perfect series to have a better understanding of Detroit’s history.
I had no idea where the author would take me during this series and I certainly couldn’t imagine how the series would end. But oh what a wonderful, hopeful, loving ending!
Now I am eager to read her social justice writings.
David Naimon, Between the Covers podcast, did a fantastic job interviewing the author. As usual, his interview compelled me to read this series. It also helped that I was going to visit Detroit this summer. This is the perfect series to have a better understanding of Detroit’s history.
I had no idea where the author would take me during this series and I certainly couldn’t imagine how the series would end. But oh what a wonderful, hopeful, loving ending!
Now I am eager to read her social justice writings.
September 7, 2025
Pretty good conclusion to this series, which has gone a lot of different places, from a sort of brooding horror/fantasy to this more overtly utopian conclusion. This last book ended up being (as the second book was too) a lot more about sexuality and navigating non-normative relationships than the sort of 'pitch' of the series suggests, but maybe that's a good thing. This one does feel a little disjointed at times, as we jump from character to character, and it's hard to always understand where the narrative is 'going'. But in that sense it also kind of honors the anarchistic promise of the community the books have been describing in growth.
July 21, 2025
I am more hopeful for having read this book, and this series. It shines light for when times are tough and things seem out of my control. There is good. I can be a part of it.
There are a few odd plot choices that I do not understand, but I will not quibble much.
I fully recommend Grievers, Maroons, and Ancestors.
There are a few odd plot choices that I do not understand, but I will not quibble much.
I fully recommend Grievers, Maroons, and Ancestors.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2025
I knew the finale of this trilogy would be inspiring, but I didn’t realize how quickly I would devour it and how many pages I would dogear to come back to. I have a feeling I’ll be re-reading this one many times for years to come.
November 27, 2025
i have loved this trilogy and think about it all the time !
sometimes lost me a little in this book and maroons mostly because dune-dawud being the focal romantic/sexual partnership and being lesbian-gay man is such an odd and irking choice to me
sometimes lost me a little in this book and maroons mostly because dune-dawud being the focal romantic/sexual partnership and being lesbian-gay man is such an odd and irking choice to me
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 23, 2025
Absolutely visionary and prophetic. This book is a gift and a guide to our collective survival and liberation.
July 26, 2025
loved this whole trilogy ❤️ such a creative, soulful and inspiring imagining of how humans could come together and live peacefully with 🌎
August 3, 2025
I have enjoyed following Dune through her journey, and I am sad that my time with her has now ended. Thank you adrienne maree brown.
September 28, 2025
literally put the book down and clapped. one of the best series i've ever read. the writing about grief, love, and community incredible.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews