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A review by thesaltiestlibrarian
Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
RTC I've gotta think about this one.
***
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I've thought about it, so here I am. Bear with me as I attempt to put into words the confusion I'm suffering. Three stars, you say? Not bad, not bad. It would be two if the prose weren't so good, keep that in mind.
So here we have Laurel Early in rural Dry Valley, Kentucky, freshly dropped out of college. Her family's tobacco farm is her future now, and she has her three best friends from childhood to welcome her home for the summer: Isaac, Garrett, and Garrett's older brother Ricky. As with a lot of rural places, the Early family cemetery is on the farm land, and the place that serves as Laurel's mother's grave is an old dried-up well. Less than 24 hours after being home, the well is busted open like something burst out of it, leaving a huge pool and trial of blood.
Well well well.
Laurel knows that her family is "cursed" according to local myth and legend, but she never thought she'd have to confront that curse herself, or that it would be so dangerous to contend with.
This story, guys. Guys, THIS STORY. I wanted to love it so badly. The potential was there, the buildup in the first third crept into my skin, and the monster had such promise.
The only thing that really worked in this entire novel were 1) the rural setting, 2) the characters being so complex, and 3) the prose. It is not a good sign that if you replaced the horror element in your HORROR novel with something contemporary and current, that that book would be the same book, GUYS. This monster could have been Deliverance-style rednecks, and that would have had the exact same effect. It could have been corporate douchebags intimidating the Earlys for their land, and it would have been the same! It could have been GENTRIFICATION OF RURAL PROPERTY, AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME!
The monster is an ornament in WAKE THE BONES. It barely raises the stakes. No one is in serious danger, the last face-off ends in a splutter, and it only really shows up in force three times. That's once every 100 pages, and that's not good enough for a novel this dark. And as for WHY the monster is doing what it's doing, well, with a gun to my head and the hammer cocked, I couldn't tell you. We're given some vague reasoning as to why it's on the land and what it's doing to the tobacco fields, but that felt flimsy enough to be a soggy piece of bread in the sink: poke it and it falls apart. This is not a horror novel. It's a gothic featuring a monster.
Is it sufficiently gothic? Yes, this book is a creeper vine around your neck. That part is clear and comes through like a brick to the head. I LOVE the claustrophobia of gothic novels, and WAKE THE BONES checks every box on the list, including the oppressiveness of a Southern summer.*
I want so badly to talk about the ending and how the last quarter of this book made me so annoyed. Not even angry. I'm not mad, just disappointed. All the things I wanted to happen that would have jacked the tension up to 11 just...fizzled. We were given not much of a conclusion to speak of. Maybe I'm a contrarian, but a novel that calls itself horror needs to show up and deliver. As a gothic, WAKE THE BONES is great. As horror, it's much more than lacking. It verges on derivative.
*Fun fact: I was born and raised in coastal Maine, and in undergrad, the choir went to Virginia in April for a tour. You know those videos of polar bears passed out on rocks in the sun? That was essentially the effect on me. I couldn't believe how hot it was already, and people were around in pants and jackets. PANTS. AND JACKETS. No wonder you guys are cold up here in June.
***
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I've thought about it, so here I am. Bear with me as I attempt to put into words the confusion I'm suffering. Three stars, you say? Not bad, not bad. It would be two if the prose weren't so good, keep that in mind.
So here we have Laurel Early in rural Dry Valley, Kentucky, freshly dropped out of college. Her family's tobacco farm is her future now, and she has her three best friends from childhood to welcome her home for the summer: Isaac, Garrett, and Garrett's older brother Ricky. As with a lot of rural places, the Early family cemetery is on the farm land, and the place that serves as Laurel's mother's grave is an old dried-up well. Less than 24 hours after being home, the well is busted open like something burst out of it, leaving a huge pool and trial of blood.
Well well well.
Laurel knows that her family is "cursed" according to local myth and legend, but she never thought she'd have to confront that curse herself, or that it would be so dangerous to contend with.
This story, guys. Guys, THIS STORY. I wanted to love it so badly. The potential was there, the buildup in the first third crept into my skin, and the monster had such promise.
The only thing that really worked in this entire novel were 1) the rural setting, 2) the characters being so complex, and 3) the prose. It is not a good sign that if you replaced the horror element in your HORROR novel with something contemporary and current, that that book would be the same book, GUYS. This monster could have been Deliverance-style rednecks, and that would have had the exact same effect. It could have been corporate douchebags intimidating the Earlys for their land, and it would have been the same! It could have been GENTRIFICATION OF RURAL PROPERTY, AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME!
The monster is an ornament in WAKE THE BONES. It barely raises the stakes. No one is in serious danger, the last face-off ends in a splutter, and it only really shows up in force three times. That's once every 100 pages, and that's not good enough for a novel this dark. And as for WHY the monster is doing what it's doing, well, with a gun to my head and the hammer cocked, I couldn't tell you. We're given some vague reasoning as to why it's on the land and what it's doing to the tobacco fields, but that felt flimsy enough to be a soggy piece of bread in the sink: poke it and it falls apart. This is not a horror novel. It's a gothic featuring a monster.
Is it sufficiently gothic? Yes, this book is a creeper vine around your neck. That part is clear and comes through like a brick to the head. I LOVE the claustrophobia of gothic novels, and WAKE THE BONES checks every box on the list, including the oppressiveness of a Southern summer.*
I want so badly to talk about the ending and how the last quarter of this book made me so annoyed. Not even angry. I'm not mad, just disappointed. All the things I wanted to happen that would have jacked the tension up to 11 just...fizzled. We were given not much of a conclusion to speak of. Maybe I'm a contrarian, but a novel that calls itself horror needs to show up and deliver. As a gothic, WAKE THE BONES is great. As horror, it's much more than lacking. It verges on derivative.
*Fun fact: I was born and raised in coastal Maine, and in undergrad, the choir went to Virginia in April for a tour. You know those videos of polar bears passed out on rocks in the sun? That was essentially the effect on me. I couldn't believe how hot it was already, and people were around in pants and jackets. PANTS. AND JACKETS. No wonder you guys are cold up here in June.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Blood, Death of parent, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Animal death and Car accident
Minor: Physical abuse