Review by emviolet - Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

emviolet 's review for:

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

4.25

dark emotional hopeful 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

i really enjoyed this book! the way it looks at women’s choices and lives over the course of centuries, how there was often little freedom to be had and few real choices to be made, is really powerful. i thought that sabine especially was an interesting character and we get to see a lot of her development and why she is the way she is. she was never soft or kind or empathetic, and it was fascinating to see her become both entirely new and never change.

alice also undergoes a lot of change, but i think in a less interesting way. i wish we got her story in a different order, and then i might have found her more compelling.

we see the least of charlotte in the beginning and i think in some ways that is to the story’s detriment. it makes it hard to understand the turns that happen for her character in places and i wish we got a little more time with her and alice together.

the last 80 or so pages feel pretty rushed; alice goes from not trusting charlotte at all to agreeing to try and kill her 500 year old ex. and succeeds!! i think this really takes away from how powerful sabine is supposed to be, and we really do get as much build as i think this point of action deserved. i think the story goes exactly where it needs to, but the pacing in the end is off.

i also felt like the flashbacks to alice’s past sometimes felt choppy and like they didn’t quite fit, but had to be put somewhere for us to understand her backstory. i think the organization and structure of those pieces could have been adjusted.

overall i really liked the book and i love the way it’s written, with some great powerful lines placed perfectly. i loved the ideas of internal rot vs external perfection, the tastes and flavors of emotion in blood, the theme and symbolism of the soil and flowers, and the themes of women’s freedoms in the world and what compromises might appear worthwhile to gain access to freedom.

Content Warnings