Bone Gap, by Laura Ruby is one of those books that you hear alot of talk about and you want to read for yourself so you can see if the hype is true.
Recently awarded the 2016 Printz award by the American Library Association (I’m a member, woo hoo!)
“Bone Gap” perfectly melds elements of fairy tales, myths, gothic romance and magic realism into the story of Finn, who lives in a town with gaps in the very fabric of time and place.
I’d heard the hype about Bone Gap and while I hadn’t heard the bit about magic realism, I still wanted to read it. When you open a book, you have to get your mindset right for the book, right? Ok so I had no idea going in that the premise was magic realism. To be sure, I love speculative fiction, but I just like to know what kind of reality I’m dealing with. Initially I thought the story reminded me of Room (watch the Oscars for that book, y’all) but then it didn’t. It wasn’t until near the end of the book that I figured out that we were talking MR which is kind of disconcerting as you try to make sense of the events in the story and how can they happen if this is supposed to be realistic? But that might be my fault and so I don’t hold it against the book.
One of the best bits about the story was the conversation between Finn and Miguel discussing Miguel’s heritage. Miguel is Venezuelan and has to explain the difference between that and Mexican to Finn. If you’ve ever had to justify your heritage you will appreciate the discourse. Also? Teen boys have strange and dumb conversations so you’ll get it. Also, the inclusion of face blindness was very interesting.
I enjoyed the book. It didn’t knock my socks off like I expected but I liked it. Some books don’t live up the hysteria around it. This book may be one of them. Still, very glad I read it. Have you read it?