Center for Teaching & Learning

“In despair, he left that farm and came to Bone Gap when it was a huge expanse of empty fields, drawn here by the grass and the bees and the strange sensation that this was a magical place, that the bones of the world were little looser here, double-jointed, twisting back on themselves, leaving spaces one could slip into and hide.”

Welcome to Bone Gap, a small town in Illinois where Finn is called names like “spaceman” and “roadkill.” His mother left him, and soon after a mysterious girl named Roza shows up out of nowhere. Everyone quickly learns to love her more than any of the people they have grown up with一especially Finn's older brother, Sean. Then Roza is taken just as mysteriously as she arrived, and only Finn saw who took her. The people of Bone Gap do not believe him. But soon after, he recognizes the man at a fair, talking to someone just out of sight. Will Bone Gap believe him now? Or will he need to find who's making the deals with the devil?

When I started reading this book, I couldn't stop. The way Laura Ruby keeps the narrative in third person, but incorporates Finn's thoughts, helped me see the whole world of the novel instead of just observing through Finn's eyes. This book is told from alternating perspectives with no set pattern. This will keep the readers interested because they will want to follow every storyline. 

When Roza “magically” shows up she doesn’t speak English. I think Ruby made this choice to create another reason for no one to like her at first. She also looks like she has been living in the sewers and has a possibly broken toe. Finn’s brother, Sean, is a doctor in training, and he fixes her up, but Roza wants Finn to do it, not Sean. Soon after, she is taken. Ruby uses Roza as a MacGuffin 一a device for moving the plot forward一 because everyone wants her back. Finn describes the man that took her with language like, “He moves like a corn stalk.”Because the people of Bone Gap don’t believe him, he is left with guilt for not trying to save Roza—only the guilt is for his brother, because ever since she has been gone, Sean has been distant and uncaring. And the one thing Finn needs is a family. 

Ruby makes this book engaging by always having a little spin between each perspective so readers want to keep going to find out the true full story. She makes it seem like Roza is being held against her will, but based on what we know from Finn’s perspective, anything could have happened. That kept me engaged with the plot, and in the high-intensity scenes I couldn't put the book down. 

With the weird and twisted characters, Ruby makes her audience think by keeping the characters’ secrets. Then, when they reveal them, everything readers thought we knew is changed. Because this book is third-person, we only think through one person at a time, so when we are with Finn we don't know what is happening in his brother's mind or in Roza’s mind. This keeps the book fresh and new with no repeated scenes.

Overall, I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys realism with a twist or thrillers. I rate this book a ten out of ten and appreciated its allusions to the Orpheus myth. This is a very special book, and I have never read anything like it before. If you read this novel you will not be disappointed.

Nestor

Balzer + Bray, 368 pages