Book Review: Bone Gap

Ok…so…I didn’t love this book, and I’m giving myself permission not to love it...(I mean, it's unrealistic to think I'm gonna love every book I read)…even though apparently I’m the only one on the face of the planet. It’s not because the writing was poor or the idea of the plot wasn’t interesting…

Here’s the thing; I don’t like it when I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I can handle stream of consciousness or flashbacks or foreshadowing. This non-sci-fi girl can even handle a fair amount of futuristic, techy, apocalyptic fun. But I can’t handle that whole “what the heck is happening…guess I must’ve missed something somewhere” feeling.

I felt the same way at the first Mission Impossible movie. The year was 1996. I was in eighth grade and felt amazing because my brother’s college girlfriend deemed me cool enough to share a girl’s night. In case you’re wondering why we picked such a movie for a girl’s night, let me assure you that when you live in a town of 2500, you just feel lucky even having a movie to go to…so whatever was showing that week was what you were seeing. And it was Tom Cruise, so I mean, how bad could it be, right? Needless to say, we stepped out of that theatre and didn’t say a word for a loooooooooooong time. Finally, she looked at me and said, “Ok…I feel really dumb…but I totally didn’t get that.” I laughed, relieved, because I didn’t get it either. It happened again some years later when I saw The Matrix, but I think that’s only because I slept through imperative parts. At any rate, I digress…

So…Bone Gap…no idea what was going on for about the first 3/4ths of the book. I even appealed to my awesome librarian’s PLN who told me “just.keep.reading.” So I did. I read and I read and I read…until I ran out of pages to read. And then I closed the book, and I thought, “Well…at least the acknowledgements were good.” The best part actually…for me anyway.

So I’m not going to tell you what happens in this book because I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that Finn and Priscilla and Roza are absolutely adorable and easy-to-love characters, but their actions don’t always ring true. Maybe I’m too “in the box” for this one, but I was left with a ton more questions, confusion, and frustration than satisfaction…until the redeeming acknowledgements that is. If magical realism (oxymoron at its best) is your thing, check out Bone Gap by Laura Ruby.

Continue Reading for a Sample of Bone Gap

References: Ferguson, S. (2015). Bone gap book trailer. Retrieved from  
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9xwdQUFT10.
Ruby, L. (2015). Bone gap. New York, NY: Balzer and Bray.