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martha_is_reading 's review for:
The Bones of You
by Debbie Howells
2.5 stars I think. I was semi-hooked, enough to finish it, but I guessed who the killer was about half way through so I found that the end lacked a lot of impact.
I didn't really like the whole ghost story element of Rosie's chapters, it was good when it was going back over events from her perspective, so that you found out new things; but when it was her as a ghost seeing the characters dealing with her death, that became a bit trite. I also really grew to dislike Kate, she was just so gullible and often quite self-absorbed.
The domestic violence storyline started as reasonably well-told, in the way that it emphasised how the abuser can appear charming and kind on the outside, and how the emotional and financial abuse can leave the victims powerless to leave (to challenge the whole "they could just leave" myth). However, I am starting to feel saturated by all of these thrillers that rely on violence against women as their reason to exist.The fact that Joanna is revealed to have been Rosie's killer as a culmination of the psychological abuse of her two daughters, just undoes any potential good work in busting domestic violence myths. Of course it's important to recognise that abusers often have a history of being abused (and, as such, shouldn't be written off as evil people), but there's also a danger of perpetuating a myth that the abused will always go on to abuse others. This particular storyline really made it feel inevitable, with Joanna's catalogue of historical abuse at the hands of both her parents and her husband. We never find out the history behind Neal's abusive behaviour, it seems to be written off as a character flaw - he's just a charming, powerful man who needs to keep up that reputation. Joanna is very much painted as the one with the real psychological problems - the eating disorders, obsession with plastic surgery, alcoholism etc. - she ultimately chooses him because of those problems, stays with him because of those problems, and even kills their daughter because of it. In fact, now that I think about it, that completely undermines the initial work in busting the myth that the victim could choose to leave at any time! While it's made clear that Neal has power over Joanna (it's even mentioned at one point that she doesn't have her own bank account), the latter details of her backstory place too much emphasis on how much she needs him to fulfill her need to make herself smaller/perfect, to the extent that it comes across that she is very much choosing to remain beholden to him. She is the one that is painted to be pathetic - when her husband has decided to leave her, and her daughter is pregnant with the gardener's baby, she has some kind of psychotic break and murders her daughter and unborn grandchild. Meanwhile, her abusive husband is just absolved of responsibility, he swans off to live in a flat in London and Kate and Laura can describe him as a nasty piece of work, but it will always be Joanna who is remembered as the psycho killer in this tale of woe. It's a disappointingly generic plot, full of stereotypes.
I didn't really like the whole ghost story element of Rosie's chapters, it was good when it was going back over events from her perspective, so that you found out new things; but when it was her as a ghost seeing the characters dealing with her death, that became a bit trite. I also really grew to dislike Kate, she was just so gullible and often quite self-absorbed.
The domestic violence storyline started as reasonably well-told, in the way that it emphasised how the abuser can appear charming and kind on the outside, and how the emotional and financial abuse can leave the victims powerless to leave (to challenge the whole "they could just leave" myth). However, I am starting to feel saturated by all of these thrillers that rely on violence against women as their reason to exist.