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A review by wanotori
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
i wanted to like this book. i wanted to love this book, i truly did. but reading this book was a chore. i had to drag my feet for the better part of the past month until forcing myself to sprint to the end this week just so i could put it behind me. i wanted to dnf it so badly but i needed to see it through, if nothing more so than for my opinion to have its "merit," or whatever.
this was my first experience with v.e. schwab and i've heard glowing reviews of her works from booktokers i love, but mixed reviews from others who loved some of her works but could not stand some others. this book, unfortunately, did not leave a positive experience or taste lingering in my mouth and does not leave much room for appeal where her other works are concerned. but i remain optimistic and i'll give her other books a chance in the future, because perhaps this was a bad fluke.
to get into what i hated (because i hated this book, i abhorred it): it began with so much promise. v.e. schwab is a wonderful writer, a beautiful writer with evocative, poetic prose, but unfortunately, where this book is concerned, that's all she's brought to the table. it's all lush metaphors and waxing poetic and so little substance. again, it began with promise. the first character we meet is interesting, and we see a girl who's trapped within the patriarchal confines of backwards societal norms of the 1500s, which persist today, if we're being honest. but she devolves so quickly the moment she becomes a vampire.
let me pause here and say this: this book was marketed as "toxic lesbian vampires" or the "wlw version of IWTV" and it's an insult to both. sure, there are lesbian vampires. and there are more vampires. and it's toxic, but not in the way you'd expect going into this. you hear toxic lesbian vampires and you think, oh it'll be lesbian vampires killing people and being evil in a FUN way. and sure! there is a lot of evil and killing! but at its core, this book is about abuse, the birth of an abuser.
this book follows three women in three different time periods whose lives eventually come to intertwine. it shares stories of womanhood, grief, family, loss, and so much more, and i suppose it does its job in that respect, because it's more about all that than it is an action-packed vampire novel. it had ambition that, in my opinion, was poorly executed with an absolute fizzling spark of an ending that was rushed like the author suddenly remembered that her agent and publisher didn't want her going overboard, because this book is already over 500 pages long where it didn't need to be. it was all metaphorical and poetic preamble about little to nothing, and sure it told a story, but it didn't connect the way i'm sure schwab intended for it to. you hardly get to know the characters for who they are because of the disjointed storytelling and the leaps between povs and timelines, and it all doesn't start connecting until after the 60% mark. but again, the ending was utterly dissatisfying. it was insulting. it was rushed with no buildup except a small little chat about it and then it just happens within the span of 20 pages whereas the rest of the book spent so much time on absolutely nothing worth reading.
maría, or sabine as she is later known because she essential steals the identity of her maker, is reprehensible. i'll just continue calling her sabine from here on out. this character was our first, and i resonated with her, at first. i could empathize with the box she was forced into, not necessarily because i know what it's like, but because i do know what it's like to live as a woman in a world where society expects you to marry and settle down as a wife and eventually become a mother. i've known since i was extremely young i never wanted kids, and i so desperately rooted for this character in her journey to avoid pregnancy in a time where there wasn't such thing as contraception. i felt for her. she had so much promise.
schwab brings nothing new to the vampire genre. it's fine to work with the tried and true tropes, but when you're using those tropes, they only work in a certain way, and unfortunately, they just didn't work in a book as slow-paced as this. this book tried to find impact in attempts at groundbreaking metaphors to evoke different emotions, but so much of what i felt was just anger, dread, and an endless agony over how slow and boring i felt this book was. the writing is so beautiful, but it's such a waste when it says nothing at all.
the characters are all so unbelievably unlikable. the most likable characters are the ones we see the least of, the characters who were there for nothing more than being plot devices or unnecessary victims in the path of sabine's destruction.
that's another thing, you know. i understand sabine's preference for drinking from women because she thinks they taste better, because YESSS men are absolutely disgusting! but why does this woman, who becomes a vicious and narcissistic abuser, have to be the stand-in for a man? sabine is literally no better than a man. were she a man instead of a lesbian woman, there'd be so much more outrage over her behavior. because why is it acceptable to commit so much violence against women? sure, she kills men, but the overwhelming majority of her victims are women.
charlotte is no better.i felt sorriest for her, mostly, because of how her story began, how she is sabine's ultimate victim, that she is the victim of such awful, severe emotional and psychological abuse. sabine is an awful person, a classic narcissistic abuser, but a million times over by virtue of her being a 500+ year old vampire. but charlotte is selfish. she knows that sabine is killing and torturing the women she dates or sleeps with, but she can't seem to stop herself from doing it.
i was most bored with alice's pov. it was nothing but obnoxious flashbacks that did nothing for the story. sure, it built upon her backstory, but it did little for her character and i didn't see a purpose in it except to tell the story of grief and family, which i suppose is the overarching point of this book, but again, it just didn't land.
ALSO? there was one written POC in this ENTIRE book. a black woman whose entire purpose was to exist as a psychic for one plot device and then was never seen or heard from again. like? and schwab made a POINT to write "a Black girl" like????? but does not do so for any other character. everyone else is presumably white. why did we have to shoehorn in a magical black person trope?????????????? be fucking serious.
also like schwab writes in historical events, like both world wars, and after she wrote in the first one, i scoffed and made a joke like, "next she'll write in the titanic" and not even 10 pages later ... lmfao.
and again. the ending. that awful, awful ending. what a load of shit.
i wanted to love this book. i wanted to be in love with schwab's beautiful, gorgeous writing, but i just couldn't. the storytelling was awful. pretty writing does not good storytelling make.
i am extremely disappointed. more than that, i am so completely and utterly envious of everyone who WAS able to enjoy this book. i wish i could have loved this, too.
this was my first experience with v.e. schwab and i've heard glowing reviews of her works from booktokers i love, but mixed reviews from others who loved some of her works but could not stand some others. this book, unfortunately, did not leave a positive experience or taste lingering in my mouth and does not leave much room for appeal where her other works are concerned. but i remain optimistic and i'll give her other books a chance in the future, because perhaps this was a bad fluke.
to get into what i hated (because i hated this book, i abhorred it): it began with so much promise. v.e. schwab is a wonderful writer, a beautiful writer with evocative, poetic prose, but unfortunately, where this book is concerned, that's all she's brought to the table. it's all lush metaphors and waxing poetic and so little substance. again, it began with promise. the first character we meet is interesting, and we see a girl who's trapped within the patriarchal confines of backwards societal norms of the 1500s, which persist today, if we're being honest. but she devolves so quickly the moment she becomes a vampire.
let me pause here and say this: this book was marketed as "toxic lesbian vampires" or the "wlw version of IWTV" and it's an insult to both. sure, there are lesbian vampires. and there are more vampires. and it's toxic, but not in the way you'd expect going into this. you hear toxic lesbian vampires and you think, oh it'll be lesbian vampires killing people and being evil in a FUN way. and sure! there is a lot of evil and killing! but at its core, this book is about abuse, the birth of an abuser.
this book follows three women in three different time periods whose lives eventually come to intertwine. it shares stories of womanhood, grief, family, loss, and so much more, and i suppose it does its job in that respect, because it's more about all that than it is an action-packed vampire novel. it had ambition that, in my opinion, was poorly executed with an absolute fizzling spark of an ending that was rushed like the author suddenly remembered that her agent and publisher didn't want her going overboard, because this book is already over 500 pages long where it didn't need to be. it was all metaphorical and poetic preamble about little to nothing, and sure it told a story, but it didn't connect the way i'm sure schwab intended for it to. you hardly get to know the characters for who they are because of the disjointed storytelling and the leaps between povs and timelines, and it all doesn't start connecting until after the 60% mark. but again, the ending was utterly dissatisfying. it was insulting. it was rushed with no buildup except a small little chat about it and then it just happens within the span of 20 pages whereas the rest of the book spent so much time on absolutely nothing worth reading.
schwab brings nothing new to the vampire genre. it's fine to work with the tried and true tropes, but when you're using those tropes, they only work in a certain way, and unfortunately, they just didn't work in a book as slow-paced as this. this book tried to find impact in attempts at groundbreaking metaphors to evoke different emotions, but so much of what i felt was just anger, dread, and an endless agony over how slow and boring i felt this book was. the writing is so beautiful, but it's such a waste when it says nothing at all.
the characters are all so unbelievably unlikable. the most likable characters are the ones we see the least of, the characters who were there for nothing more than being plot devices or unnecessary victims in the path of sabine's destruction.
that's another thing, you know. i understand sabine's preference for drinking from women because she thinks they taste better, because YESSS men are absolutely disgusting! but why does this woman, who becomes a vicious and narcissistic abuser, have to be the stand-in for a man? sabine is literally no better than a man. were she a man instead of a lesbian woman, there'd be so much more outrage over her behavior. because why is it acceptable to commit so much violence against women? sure, she kills men, but the overwhelming majority of her victims are women.
charlotte is no better.
i was most bored with alice's pov. it was nothing but obnoxious flashbacks that did nothing for the story. sure, it built upon her backstory, but it did little for her character and i didn't see a purpose in it except to tell the story of grief and family, which i suppose is the overarching point of this book, but again, it just didn't land.
ALSO? there was one written POC in this ENTIRE book. a black woman whose entire purpose was to exist as a psychic for one plot device and then was never seen or heard from again. like? and schwab made a POINT to write "a Black girl" like????? but does not do so for any other character. everyone else is presumably white. why did we have to shoehorn in a magical black person trope?????????????? be fucking serious.
also like schwab writes in historical events, like both world wars, and after she wrote in the first one, i scoffed and made a joke like, "next she'll write in the titanic" and not even 10 pages later ... lmfao.
and again. the ending. that awful, awful ending. what a load of shit.
i wanted to love this book. i wanted to be in love with schwab's beautiful, gorgeous writing, but i just couldn't. the storytelling was awful. pretty writing does not good storytelling make.
i am extremely disappointed. more than that, i am so completely and utterly envious of everyone who WAS able to enjoy this book. i wish i could have loved this, too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Gaslighting
Moderate: Sexual content