Here for a Good Time

by Kim Spencer

A poignant coming-of-age YA debut featuring an Indigenous teen girl grappling with the effects of intergenerational trauma while navigating school, family and young love, by multi-award-winning author Kim Spencer.

It is 1990. Morgan has lived all her life in the small fishing town of Prince Rupert in northern British Columbia. Ever since her mom took off when she was ten, Morgan has kept an eye on her dad, a commercial fisherman who works hard and occasionally parties even harder. After struggling to keep up and find a place at a public high school, Morgan's best friend Skye convinces her to attend an alternate school.

There, she meets Nate. Both cute and intelligent, Nate introduces her to a wider worldview, including music, movies and books, and becomes a lifeline after an unimaginable tragedy strikes.  In the aftermath, Morgan learns hard truths about her mother's painful past and the resulting intergenerational effects of that trauma, and as she struggles to come to terms with her new reality, an unexpected development offers a chance of a fresh start, with love and forgiveness at its core.

Genres: Young Adult, Indigenous, Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 10, 2026

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a YA historical fiction novel set in...the 1990s. Please give me a moment while I hyperventilate over my my youth now being considered historical fiction fodder. The story follows a Canadian native girl named Morgan and spans her sophomore, junior, and (what would have been her) senior year. Morgan is a bright girl who has been failed by the system and whose family is still reeling from multiple generations of abuse in residential schools. While Morgan does grow and change, there is a frustrating sense that life just sort of happens TO her and she accepts her passive role without much objection. While Morgan's story appears to end on a happy note, the novel comes with a wide variety of trigger warnings including content associated with rape (non graphic and referred to only in the past tense), abortion, teen pregnancy, teen parents, wide spread alcohol abuse, drug use (primarily weed, but references to stronger drugs like acid and meth do appear), residential school trauma, parent death, sibling death, suicide (non graphic), high school dropout, relapse, and sexual abuse of children (including sexual abuse by religious leaders). These topics are dealt with in an age appropriate manner but are very present, as are multiple instances of characters who relapse following discussing their traumatic experiences. Students who traumatic histories MUST be provided with extra support if this book is assigned in a classroom.

[rachel x]

"A poignant coming-of-age YA debut featuring an Indigenous teen girl grappling with the effects of intergenerational trauma while navigating school, family and young love"

[Darya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morgan is an Indigenous teen living in the town of Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada, in the early 1990s. That’s a must to mention, because all of Kim Spencer’s books seem to be weirdly specific about depicting not a “general experience” of growing up Indigenous in Canada but a very precisely localized one, bound to this coastal town, in which life is very much structured around ocean fishing. So is Morgan’s father, like her grandfather before him, a fisher, as are the families of some of Morgan’s friends and schoolmates.

Fishing actually allows them quite a comfortable standard of living — which I would like to emphasize in light of the following: there is a tendency in many portrayals to conflate dysfunctional family dynamics with socioeconomic circumstances, especially when writing about Indigenous people ("The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" is obviously the first thing that comes to mind) and other marginalized minorities. Instead, Spencer explores here the intergenerational trauma of residential schools in Canada, to which Indigenous children were removed from their families and cultures and brought up in abusive environments. The book shows how, despite this obviously not being true for Morgan herself, it is true for a few of her relatives (I’ll be vague, as this is something gradually discovered over the course of the story), and how their trauma leads to further traumatizing seemingly unaffected people, like Morgan.

I believe this is a very important thing to thematize in fiction: both the aspect of colonial violence and the aspect of intergenerational consequences that linger on. At the same time, I didn’t feel that this story works to its full potential from a narrative point of view. As a few other reviewers mentioned, the choice to tell events spanning several years in disjointed snippets made it harder to connect to the protagonist. Something else mentioned in reviews, which I also felt — that it seems as if life simply happens to Morgan, without many deliberate decisions on her part — might actually be a result of organizing the story in snippets. Between the moments when we see her, there may have been a lot of decision-making, but the reader only sees the outcome: “okay, what else happened to Morgan in the meantime?” I would have liked to see more introspection about, for example, what actually made it so hard for her to stay in the conventional school system and why the alternative school made a difference—other than the fact that she meets a significant person there.

I still recommend it, with these reservations. And I am far from done with this author; I already added myself to the queue for a library copy of her middle-grade duology about another Indigenous (pre-)teen growing up in Prince Rupert.

3.5 stars.

Publication date: March 10, 2026.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an eARC of this book through NetGalley. The opinion above is entirely my own.

[Reading_seas0n · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you, Tundra Book Group | Swift Water Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book honestly! I am apart of the Penguin Teen Ca Influencer program but all my opinions are my own!

4.25 stars
This is an effortless read!
I literally read this book in 1 hour and I think a lot of people with enjoy this book.

Set in the 90's we follow Morgan's life as they show us their day to day life, glimpses into the lives of their family & those around them, all different but all impactful - whether good or bad.
We see the underlining trauma lingering in the air over their friend Skye & their mother and how it can shape & affect your life.
It also touched on residential schools and the fact that those hellish places destroyed and took many lives, whether at the school or in the aftereffects of life after the school.

We touched on a lot of subjects: teen pregnancy, abortion, residential schools, rape, young parent life, trauma, abuse & loss and I think they were all done in a soft manner. It didn't go deep into the topics but enough that you felt the pain.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here for a Good Time is essentially the diary of Morgan, a Tsimshian teen in 1991 navigating everyday highs and lows-- just a few of them being complex friendships, young love, and grief that spans her everyday life as well as the intergenerational trauma that comes with some of her family members being Indian Boarding School survivors. Spencer's writing style has consistently been like momentary vignettes, a bit sparse while expressing pivotal moments and memories; her characters are engaging and the way they interact and live feel so relatable in a way that keeps you invested, wanting to know more about Morgan's family and friends. After the last page, I'm still wondering more about where her life will take her. Reminiscent of Jacqueline Woodson in regards to how her writing is simple and accessible, but super emotionally effective and feels pulled straight from real life. Kim Spencer has definitely become an auto-read author for me.

[Chris G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morgan’s life in 1990s Prince Rupert, BC, revolves around those who fish, like her dad and grandpa, and her native community. It’s been years since Morgan’s mom slid into alcoholism which led to her living on the streets of Vancouver, but Morgan’s grandparents are nearby and help support Morgan even as she struggles in school and finds an alternative high school that fits her learning needs. There she meets Nate and their friendship is a constant through the ups and downs of her BFF, Skye, and Morgan’s dad’s death in a fishing accident. Mostly unacknowledged is the undercurrent of damage caused by the residential schools - grandma was forced to attend as was Morgan’s mom. When Nate and Morgan become pregnant, it feels even more urgent for Morgan to understand how the memory of the schools continues to impact the Native community. Short, punchy chapters and a fast-paced story. Earc from Edelweiss.