Book Review #2

Hanna, Daniella

Book Review #1

Period 4

14 December 2016

Bone Gap

Laura Ruby

Fiction

343 Pages

National Book Award For Young People’s Literature

        

            The novel, Bone Gap, by Laura Ruby, is about a teenage boy named Finn going through a series mysterious things. His mom had already left him and his older brother Sean, but things only get crazier for him. Bone Gap has always been a mysterious little town where everyone knew everyone else’s business but no one gets too attached to someone knowing anything could happen at anytime. But when a beautiful Polish girl named Roza mysteriously appears in Sean and Finn O’Sullivan’s barn, everyone becomes very fond of her quickly, especially Sean. It devastates people when she goes missing only a little while after but later on no one really takes much interest knowing this is a normal thing that happens in Bone Gap. But Finn O’Sullivan had witnessed her being kidnapped by a man he described as tall and who “moves like a cornstalk in the wind.” Not being able to describe the man’s face, no one believed Finn, not even his own brother who was in love with Roza. Finn decides to take matters into his own hands and find any way to bring back Roza. Roza is kidnapped by a professor of her’s who thought that she was beautiful. He takes her to a place that can only be described as another realm. He is able to make it look however she wants to fool her into falling in love with him, which luckily never happens. No one knows where she is or what she’s dealing with as she is looking for any way to escape the horrible place. Finn is distracted for a bit by a girl his age named Priscilla. They fall madly in love at such a young age that they are the talk of the town for quite a while. They take horse rides in the middle of the night which are described as if they are traveling foreign places never known to man. Priscilla brings up a point to Finn that she had been thinking about for a while. She tells him she believes he is face blind and that thats the the reason he couldn’t describe the man’s features and that that may be the only reason he loves her, being that she is constantly called a very ugly girl among the town. Finn takes this to heart and it takes him while to figure out that this is truly a reason to many things. Finn goes back to looking for Roza and travels a very dangerous and nerve racking journey to whatever “realm” she was being kept in. He finds her after having to go through a series of dangerous events and dealing with this very mysterious and scary man. At last they are able to escape together and return to Bone Gap as Finn is praised for his bravery and Roza is welcomed once again with much love.

            Bone Gap was one of the best books I have read in a while. The way the author describes everything in such a detailed way makes the book so realistic and amazing to read. You feel as if you’re dealing with the situations with the characters and as you go through you can't help but try to figure out the ending to every mystery occurring. On page 45 Petey’s movements are described so well: “She held both palms up to face the sky, one gloved, one sleeved in bees, like a shaman performing some ancient ritual. A breeze made her hair dance. All around her, dozens of honeybees whirled like tiny moons in orbit, anchored only by her gravity.” I love the way this author writes because she makes this such a relatable book describing everything that any teenager would be thinking in every situation going on. Like on page 287 after Finn finds out he’s face blind, he thinks of Roza and how to find her: “He almost screamed at the unfairness, at the injustice—the blind in charge of finding the hidden, sure, that made so much sense.”There is no way you can classify this book under one fictional category because it is filled with so many things including mystery, romance, fantasy, and adventure. There was honestly nothing I didn’t like about this book. It was so perfectly written that nothing to me affected it in a bad way. This book does change scenes randomly throughout each chapter but as you read through it you get used to it. I did enjoy the ending of the book because it ended in a sort of  “happily ever after” type of way. They celebrated Roza and Finn’s somewhat safe return and it was a very joyful scene after all the anxiety rising ones. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who isn’t annoyed by a mix of different plots and different categories in the same book. It is filled with so much mystery that makes you just want to keep reading more to find out what happens next. This was such an amazing book to read and I plan on reading much more from this author in the future.