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

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

4.75

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil feels like V.E Schwab opened a vein and wrote with whatever came out. Blood, memory, desire, rage and regret, perhaps.

But this book goes far beyond vampires. Schwab writes of women who are not just full of fangs, they’re full of want, fury, contradictions and a yearning for freedom, selfhood, safety, rage and sometimes revenge. And the freedom to love who they love.

She writes of women who’ve been consumed their entire lives by patriarchy, by silence, by roles they didn’t choose and what happens when they begin to consume in return. Schwab explores predator and prey. Who’s dangerous now? I support women’s wrongs.

Subsequently, this leads to a meditation on humanity, power, consent, hunger (literal and metaphorical), longing and grief. It’s V.E. Schwab at her most raw, her most autobiographical and maybe her most damning.

If you’ve read Schwab’s coming out story on Oprah Daily, you’ll recognise the echoes. There is a sense throughout that Schwab is cracking herself open.

Her prose is rhythmic and deliberate. For some, it will read as purple. For me, it read as lyrical and poetic even though it sometimes teetered into too flowery. I embraced it anyway.

Anyway, I’d take a guess that if you loved The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue’s wandering lyricism, you’ll vibe with this book too, and if you disliked it, then you may not. I’d say it's character-driven over plot, and meanders before the stakes (🧐) get tighter. But if you’re drawn to character-led stories and can surrender to the cadence, the rhythm of metaphor-rich prose laced with queerness, gothic tones, and a touch of light horror, you’ll be swept away.

For me this was ferociously alive, even when dripping in death.

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