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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
i read this book a ages ago after i bought it at the last bookcon (fly high) and i just randomly remembered it and how baffled i was by it. don't know why. anyway if i had a nickle for every time i picked up a book with a summary that made it sound like a horror book about something paranormal like ghosts or monsters but had a boring plot twist where it turned out to just be people i would have wayyy to many nickles. this one was especially weird she had like. a murder gene??? bizarre. needed to log this thought somewhere
The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste is a creepy thriller that will have you turning the pages until it is finished. Twenty years ago, a group of teens explored the local woods, attempting to find the lair of the Bone Keeper. Not all the teenagers returned. When a woman claims to have escaped the clutches of the Bone Killer, DC Louise Henderson must convince her colleagues that the bone killer exists. Gripping read. 4 stars
Oof. I struggled so hard to finish this book, but I’m a sucker and always hold out hope that the ending will make all the rest worth it.
Sadly, this wasn’t the case here. It’s hard to imagine that the events of the book took place over, what, four or five days? It felt like four or five years because of how much this book repeated the same situations over and over and over.
I couldn’t stand Louise. The entire book centers around her waffling between feeling guilty for not sharing “what she knows,” and insisting to herself that she knows nothing, that her past is an enigma, blank, forgotten. So...which is it? This lack of consistency through the entire novel drove me insane. It seemed like the author tried to end many of the chapters on weird cliffhangers that really fell short of inspiring any sense of mystery. The one that comes to mind is when they’re in a murder victim’s house, and Louise is heading down the stairs, and the final line of the chapter is something to the effect of, “every step she took felt like betrayal.” I literally laughed out loud at that line! What?? It makes no sense. A betrayal of what, since she has amnesia and can’t make up her mind on if she actually knows things that could help the case? I also didn’t like that she tiptoed around different clues throughout the novel and left them like little breadcrumbs for the other officer to “discover,” instead of doing what she could to help solve the case.
The ending did not seem plausible and asked for a whole lot of suspension of disbelief. The entire premise of the novel asked for this, really. Every situation with TBK makes it seem like some ethereal devil that somehow envelopes the space around it with darkness and uses some outside, evil force to prevent its victims from moving. And then, the grand finale...this urban myth becomes a cult following of serial killers. So, this book was not set in fantasy or reality, which left it a weird mesh of the two that did not work for me. I was not surprised by the “twists,” and guessed a pretty accurate version of them about halfway through the novel.
I hated that the novel would alternate into TBK point of view. It decreased his creepiness factor, to me.
The “romance” between the two officers felt so very forced and awkward. The attraction was not believable in the slightest.
Overall - obviously - would not recommend. The writing was boring and lazy, the novel was waaaay too long, and none of the characters were compelling.
Sadly, this wasn’t the case here. It’s hard to imagine that the events of the book took place over, what, four or five days? It felt like four or five years because of how much this book repeated the same situations over and over and over.
I couldn’t stand Louise. The entire book centers around her waffling between feeling guilty for not sharing “what she knows,” and insisting to herself that she knows nothing, that her past is an enigma, blank, forgotten. So...which is it? This lack of consistency through the entire novel drove me insane. It seemed like the author tried to end many of the chapters on weird cliffhangers that really fell short of inspiring any sense of mystery. The one that comes to mind is when they’re in a murder victim’s house, and Louise is heading down the stairs, and the final line of the chapter is something to the effect of, “every step she took felt like betrayal.” I literally laughed out loud at that line! What?? It makes no sense. A betrayal of what, since she has amnesia and can’t make up her mind on if she actually knows things that could help the case? I also didn’t like that she tiptoed around different clues throughout the novel and left them like little breadcrumbs for the other officer to “discover,” instead of doing what she could to help solve the case.
The ending did not seem plausible and asked for a whole lot of suspension of disbelief. The entire premise of the novel asked for this, really. Every situation with TBK makes it seem like some ethereal devil that somehow envelopes the space around it with darkness and uses some outside, evil force to prevent its victims from moving. And then, the grand finale...this urban myth becomes a cult following of serial killers. So, this book was not set in fantasy or reality, which left it a weird mesh of the two that did not work for me. I was not surprised by the “twists,” and guessed a pretty accurate version of them about halfway through the novel.
I hated that the novel would alternate into TBK point of view. It decreased his creepiness factor, to me.
The “romance” between the two officers felt so very forced and awkward. The attraction was not believable in the slightest.
Overall - obviously - would not recommend. The writing was boring and lazy, the novel was waaaay too long, and none of the characters were compelling.
3.5* like that the bone keeper was real. Matthew was disappointing .
Questionable writing, poor character development, and a confusing and not at all satisfying payout at the end. While there were definite golden moments, after about 100 pages I was just itching to finish it so I could move on to something better. The premise is very intriguing but the delivery was far more complicated than necessary. Too many characters, too many points of view. The idea would have been better served with less strings needing to be tied up by the last page. This was an immediate give-away-pile book.
I really was surprised by how fun of a thrill ride this was! I never would have expected that from the little I knew about the book, my was it worth every page!
Personally, I didn't like the writing style. It seemed all over the place. It didn't seem to just flow.
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Addiction, Torture, Abandonment
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was an extremely hard read for multiple reasons. For one, the author’s writing was extremely vague at times and didn’t give the reader a good idea of what was going on. This happens in a few particular action scenes. Secondly, the way the antagonist is described is very back-and-forth, not in a mysterious way but in an annoying way. The subplot romance was good until the two main characters decided not to communicate their feelings with each other after finally sharing a kiss scene . Overall was a very mediocre and confusing book, but if you like having absolutely no clue what’s going on this might be the book for you!
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault
The scene is not graphic at all but there is a part of the book where an antagonist breaks into a couple’s house, kills the husband, then “kills” the wife and rapes her (she was still alive when he did this but his intention was to have sex with her dead body).