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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
[b:Bone Gap|18806240|Bone Gap|Laura Ruby|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1402928507l/18806240._SY75_.jpg|26737294] was a surprising read. Based on the description, I thought it was just going to be a mystery. But, it also has a lot of fantasy elements, some of which were slightly confusing. But, overall, it was a very enjoyable book and I'm happy to have read it.
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book!!!! I absolutely loved it. It was unexpected and poetic and an absolute treat.
I started this book one evening and was 42% in when I realized I had absolutely not paid any attention whatsoever and I had no idea what was happening in the slightest. So I started over, and when I paid more attention, it did hold my attention enough. However, upon finishing it, I can tell that I am going to forget it in its entirety. It just wasn't enough of anything.
The adoration of Rosa never felt earned. She might have had a back story, but she didn't feel three-dimensional. And while the crux of the problem of identifying a bad guy coming down to was clever, I'm not sure it was the "big reveal" the book made it seem like? .
Also I love love love magical realism and that's surely why I even put this in my to-read list, but there wasn't enough of that, either. Meh.
The adoration of Rosa never felt earned. She might have had a back story, but she didn't feel three-dimensional. And while the crux of the problem of identifying a bad guy coming down to
Spoiler
face blindnessSpoiler
I did learn some things about face blindness that I had not known, like being drawn to "ugly" faces because you can actually recognize them, but I didn't need this whole book to educate me on itAlso I love love love magical realism and that's surely why I even put this in my to-read list, but there wasn't enough of that, either. Meh.
This was a good, solid read. Nicely plotted although very rarely I found myself confused if something was taking place in the present or still in the backstory/memory. There was but a single element out of place and that was the goat. Why the goat?
Our protagonist keeps picking up animal sidekicks and the goat was wholly without purpose except for one somewhat funny scene. I would have liked a little more Petey in there and a little more bees. I would have also liked the MC to be (explicitly) autistic, but it turns out there was another reason why he struggles with eye contact.
That being said, I am aware that most readers will probably not feel very strongly about the concept of bees in their YA, so I will not hold it against the novel.
Our protagonist keeps picking up animal sidekicks and the goat was wholly without purpose except for one somewhat funny scene. I would have liked a little more Petey in there and a little more bees. I would have also liked the MC to be (explicitly) autistic, but it turns out there was another reason why he struggles with eye contact.
That being said, I am aware that most readers will probably not feel very strongly about the concept of bees in their YA, so I will not hold it against the novel.
I decided to give this novel a try based on its accolades and honours, and while I quite enjoyed it (even if I found it a little on the nose with the whole beauty / seeing people / faces thing), the way Poland and Polish culture are used left me irritated and confused. I kept wondering what decade the novel was supposed to be happening in, and were the strange anachronysms purposeful. Unfortunately, I'm afraid - not really.
But before I get to my beef with the novel, let me praise what I liked. The book is fast-paced but lyrical, the relationships between the characters are multifaceted, Petey is awesome. I liked Finn and his voice. I didn't like the fact that all Polish people other than Roza and her grandma were terrible, or that Roza has no friends or attachments to Polish things other than food, but what can you do.
So let's get to the gist.
The author thanks some people for help with "obscure Polish translations" (wtf does that even mean???) at the end. I'm not sure she should. On a whim, I checked some of those Polish phrases with mistakes using google translate and you know what? Google translate gets most of them right. Makes fewer mistakes than this novel. It is capable of correctly translating "I'm a slave here. I live on bread and water." as "Jestem tutaj niewolnikiem. Żyję o chlebie i wodzie." It would also get "I'm trapped here" (which would actually make more sense in context). It knows how to spell gołąbki.
I guess it wouldn't help the author find out about all the factual errors she made, but that's neither here nor there.
The problems were specifically connected to:
Names: wrong gender of surnames (Halina Solkolkowski - likely a mistranscription of Sokołowski, and it should be Sokołowska because surnames like this one are slightly different for men and women, which you could find by googling for 2 minutes, or just reading the article on wikipedia - something neither the author, nor her editorial team has done), completely unlikely names of minor male characters (Gerek, Ludo?). Names of minor female characters are more believable (Karolina is fine, Honorata is odd in how old-fashioned it is but that can happen; I have an unusual name).
Roza, however, is not a Polish name. It could be a diminutive or a mispronunciation of a Polish name, but the book, by the end, doesn't indicate any such thing. That is beyond annoying.
Geography: there's no such thing as "a town too small to have a name"; even villages with one street have names in Poland. And a town large enough to have multiple boys at the same age for the protagonist to date would definitely have one.
I can't stress this enough: Bears in Poland don't enter houses. They are extremely rare animals. We do, however, have a common joke about how Americans are so gullible about geography that they think polar bears roam the streets in Poland. Yes, we literally have a joke about that. Boar, on the other hand, can behave like this. They'll dig up your garden, get into the trash and go back to the forest.
See this picture from the Polish wikipedia. It's not an entirely unlikely thing to see in my country! A bear in town though? That would raise eyebrows.
Girls in Poland... listen to Taylor Swift and Beyonce. And even our mothers learnt to dance watching Dirty Dancing. Not polkas. Unless someone is specifically interested in folk music, they don't dance polkas. We aren't like country-obsessed America, by the way. We have our own types of popular kitsch-y music but polkas aren't that. We also have the Internet, radio and TV (including American TV which would tell even Roza's grandmother that in America people don't wear dresses made of money. I mean, her grandmother is 85% likely to watch The Bold and the Beautiful).
Life in Poland: Polish students usually start university at 19 unless they went to school early. So an 18 year old university student would be unusual.
You boil pierogi before frying them.
The singular of "pierogi" isn't also "pierogi".
And my particular source of annoyance - the way Roza's English is written is practically offensive. Conjugating verbs with subjects is the first lesson you learn when studying English. Roza would not ask "Is okay?" after 2 years of living in the US. She might say "It is okay?" instead of "Is it okay?", she might forget articles and third person -s endings, she might mix up verb forms, but randomly skipping "this" doesn't make sense because, guess what, Polish uses "this" as well. I teach English as a second language and in 90% of cases the way mistakes of non-natives are written has zero in common with real life struggles of a person learning English, but the way Roza's language was written was simply obscenely bad. Especially considering her status as an immigrant in the 21st century, as part of a university-organised exchange program. She would speak better English *before* going to the US, and after two years there... Certainly.
(I do hope the next book I choose to read will give me fewer reasons to complain.)
But before I get to my beef with the novel, let me praise what I liked. The book is fast-paced but lyrical, the relationships between the characters are multifaceted, Petey is awesome. I liked Finn and his voice. I didn't like the fact that all Polish people other than Roza and her grandma were terrible, or that Roza has no friends or attachments to Polish things other than food, but what can you do.
So let's get to the gist.
The author thanks some people for help with "obscure Polish translations" (wtf does that even mean???) at the end. I'm not sure she should. On a whim, I checked some of those Polish phrases with mistakes using google translate and you know what? Google translate gets most of them right. Makes fewer mistakes than this novel. It is capable of correctly translating "I'm a slave here. I live on bread and water." as "Jestem tutaj niewolnikiem. Żyję o chlebie i wodzie." It would also get "I'm trapped here" (which would actually make more sense in context). It knows how to spell gołąbki.
I guess it wouldn't help the author find out about all the factual errors she made, but that's neither here nor there.
The problems were specifically connected to:
Names: wrong gender of surnames (Halina Solkolkowski - likely a mistranscription of Sokołowski, and it should be Sokołowska because surnames like this one are slightly different for men and women, which you could find by googling for 2 minutes, or just reading the article on wikipedia - something neither the author, nor her editorial team has done), completely unlikely names of minor male characters (Gerek, Ludo?). Names of minor female characters are more believable (Karolina is fine, Honorata is odd in how old-fashioned it is but that can happen; I have an unusual name).
Roza, however, is not a Polish name. It could be a diminutive or a mispronunciation of a Polish name, but the book, by the end, doesn't indicate any such thing. That is beyond annoying.
Geography: there's no such thing as "a town too small to have a name"; even villages with one street have names in Poland. And a town large enough to have multiple boys at the same age for the protagonist to date would definitely have one.
I can't stress this enough: Bears in Poland don't enter houses. They are extremely rare animals. We do, however, have a common joke about how Americans are so gullible about geography that they think polar bears roam the streets in Poland. Yes, we literally have a joke about that. Boar, on the other hand, can behave like this. They'll dig up your garden, get into the trash and go back to the forest.
See this picture from the Polish wikipedia. It's not an entirely unlikely thing to see in my country! A bear in town though? That would raise eyebrows.
Girls in Poland... listen to Taylor Swift and Beyonce. And even our mothers learnt to dance watching Dirty Dancing. Not polkas. Unless someone is specifically interested in folk music, they don't dance polkas. We aren't like country-obsessed America, by the way. We have our own types of popular kitsch-y music but polkas aren't that. We also have the Internet, radio and TV (including American TV which would tell even Roza's grandmother that in America people don't wear dresses made of money. I mean, her grandmother is 85% likely to watch The Bold and the Beautiful).
Life in Poland: Polish students usually start university at 19 unless they went to school early. So an 18 year old university student would be unusual.
You boil pierogi before frying them.
The singular of "pierogi" isn't also "pierogi".
And my particular source of annoyance - the way Roza's English is written is practically offensive. Conjugating verbs with subjects is the first lesson you learn when studying English. Roza would not ask "Is okay?" after 2 years of living in the US. She might say "It is okay?" instead of "Is it okay?", she might forget articles and third person -s endings, she might mix up verb forms, but randomly skipping "this" doesn't make sense because, guess what, Polish uses "this" as well. I teach English as a second language and in 90% of cases the way mistakes of non-natives are written has zero in common with real life struggles of a person learning English, but the way Roza's language was written was simply obscenely bad. Especially considering her status as an immigrant in the 21st century, as part of a university-organised exchange program. She would speak better English *before* going to the US, and after two years there... Certainly.
(I do hope the next book I choose to read will give me fewer reasons to complain.)
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wtf was the point of this book.... The beginning had some promise, then it took a turn that did not make sense. Was left confused and annoyed... The intrigue did keep me going through this book, but was left pretty disappointed. I didn't even realize this was magical realism until I was done with the book. Can't say I'm a fan...
This book was very interesting. When you first get to Bone Gap it seems like a run of the mill, typical small town. You slowly find out that it is not the case. The magical realism and retelling (Hades and Persephone) elements of this story were very enjoyable for me! There is points in the story that you think you have things figured out but then something else happens and you start over. I enjoyed the multiple perspective format that it was told in. This book will definetly leave you craving some honey!
Review copy: ARC from publisher
Part of the appeal of this book was the mystery. Not just the mystery of where Roza has gone, but the mystery of how this world works, the mystery of how we see our loved ones, the mystery of relationships. As a reader I am always questioning as I read, but with this book, I was asking tons of questions. Magical realism is not my first pick when I am choosing a book, but it really worked well here.
Colby Sharp warned me it would be creepy and there were definitely creepy aspects, but mostly this was a book about relationships and being there for loved ones no matter what.
I enjoyed getting to know the personalities in Bone Gap. The climax seemed to resolve a smidge too easily, but altogether this was a unique and engrossing book I would recommend to those who enjoy a mix of romance and magic.
Part of the appeal of this book was the mystery. Not just the mystery of where Roza has gone, but the mystery of how this world works, the mystery of how we see our loved ones, the mystery of relationships. As a reader I am always questioning as I read, but with this book, I was asking tons of questions. Magical realism is not my first pick when I am choosing a book, but it really worked well here.
Colby Sharp warned me it would be creepy and there were definitely creepy aspects, but mostly this was a book about relationships and being there for loved ones no matter what.
I enjoyed getting to know the personalities in Bone Gap. The climax seemed to resolve a smidge too easily, but altogether this was a unique and engrossing book I would recommend to those who enjoy a mix of romance and magic.
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes