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kimreadsthings 's review for:
Bone Gap
by Laura Ruby
4.5
How do you review an unreviewable book? The entire book reads as if it is a dream. How do you describe a dream? There is an impossibility in trying to make sense of what can not be made sense of. I can try to describe to you the aspects that correlate with reality. But when they take a sudden nose dive into the magical, the inexplicable, the surreal...how do I explain that?
This is a book full of contradictions. It is a fairytale and it is not. It is a love story and it is not. It is a mythical retelling and it is not. On the surface, this is a book about a young woman who has been kidnapped and about her teenage friend’s struggle to come to terms with what happened. But it is so much more than that. What it is is a compelling, tautly told story that conveys the nuances of women’s lives and small town lives and the intersections at which they meet.
It is also an exploration of the way society punishes women for both conforming and not conforming to sexist, patriarchal expectations. There is Roza, so beautiful that she has been kidnapped because she is “the most beautiful woman in the world.” The novel explores the ways that Roza has suffered for her beauty both in her native Poland and in her adopted town of Bone Gap. Then there is Petey, so ugly that her unattractiveness is a constant refrain in the small town of Bone Gap. It doesn’t matter that Petey is a competent beekeeper and keeper of her own self worth. Just as it doesn’t matter that Roza knew the measure of herself as a person beyond her conventional looks. But this truth remains: Roza and Petey are made of iron and they are the backbone upon which the novel rests.
Find the rest of this review at The Midnight Garden
How do you review an unreviewable book? The entire book reads as if it is a dream. How do you describe a dream? There is an impossibility in trying to make sense of what can not be made sense of. I can try to describe to you the aspects that correlate with reality. But when they take a sudden nose dive into the magical, the inexplicable, the surreal...how do I explain that?
This is a book full of contradictions. It is a fairytale and it is not. It is a love story and it is not. It is a mythical retelling and it is not. On the surface, this is a book about a young woman who has been kidnapped and about her teenage friend’s struggle to come to terms with what happened. But it is so much more than that. What it is is a compelling, tautly told story that conveys the nuances of women’s lives and small town lives and the intersections at which they meet.
It is also an exploration of the way society punishes women for both conforming and not conforming to sexist, patriarchal expectations. There is Roza, so beautiful that she has been kidnapped because she is “the most beautiful woman in the world.” The novel explores the ways that Roza has suffered for her beauty both in her native Poland and in her adopted town of Bone Gap. Then there is Petey, so ugly that her unattractiveness is a constant refrain in the small town of Bone Gap. It doesn’t matter that Petey is a competent beekeeper and keeper of her own self worth. Just as it doesn’t matter that Roza knew the measure of herself as a person beyond her conventional looks. But this truth remains: Roza and Petey are made of iron and they are the backbone upon which the novel rests.
Find the rest of this review at The Midnight Garden