Monday, July 11, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Wake the Bones by Elizabeth Kilcoyne

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on July 12, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.    

Wake the Bones is a Young Adult Southern (or South Midwestern?) Gothic novel written by debut author Elizabeth Kilcoyne.  Southern Gothic novels are an interesting subgenre of fantasy horror, of which I've had mixed feelings in the past - some of those mixed feelings are undoubtedly caused by the fact that I'm well an American from the North (despite 4 years in Durham for college), which leaves me with less familiarity with the settings involved in such books.  There's also the fact that Southern Gothics rely heavily on atmospheric setting descriptions, which I don't particularly love due to some difficult visualizing I have.  But Wake the Bones got some recommendations from some authors I followed and had an interesting cover, so I requested it on NetGalley anyway to see how I'd feel about it.  

And well Wake the Bones is a fine YA Southern Gothic, even as it ties together a number of elements I've seen before in both Southern Gothics and other novels.  You have a strong central protagonist with ambivalence about the future she wants for her future to go along with a tragic past and magic; you also have a pair of gay secondary protagonists who have different wishes and struggles, and well you have a solid horror plot that takes some interesting turns.  But the book very much is tying together a bunch of classic plot beats together, even if not in a typical combination, and it just didn't quite do it for me yet again, so if you're like me and not super into such novels (southern gothics, or stories that rely heavily on atmospheric horror to go with emotional struggles), this might not do it for you either.  

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Parental Abuse, Homophobia, among other things - the book is prefaced with a more explicit trigger warning, so as to not surprise, so I won't repeat that here.  

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Laurel Early tried to get away from the Kentucky farm in which she grew up in, the farm in which her mom seemingly committed suicide by jumping down the well.  But after college didn't work out and she dropped out, she returned back to the farm where she and her three childhood friends - Isaac, and brothers Ricky and Garrett - help tend to the crops....and where Laurel plies her hobby: taxidermy.  And Laurel's special gift - the ability to see things when touching bones - makes that taxidermy very special indeed.  

Still Laurel is unsure about the direction her life is taken, especially in regards to Ricky...who she has always felt a mutual attraction with, even as she feels like being with him would be a step back.  But those fears may wind up being less important compared to the nightmare visions of her mother that Laurel has been having....and of the devil from her mother's past that has returned to haunt the farm...a devil that is desperate to consume Laurel and what she cares about.  

It will take Laurel discovering the magic deep within her, as well as the truth behind her mother's death, for her to save the things, place, and people that she loves....and even that might not be enough to save everyone....
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Wake the Bones is a novel that largely focuses upon Laurel, although occasionally it'll shift the third person perspective to another character - usually Isaac or outside psychic Christine, but sometimes Ricky or Garrett.  These character switches are a bit frustrating at times honestly - since the entire book is told from third person, it's sometimes not clear whose perspective is being shown and it's a bit confusing.  But mostly the writing works to keep things very atmospheric, and to really showcase both the Southern Gothic nature of the story as well as the internal youth-driven struggles of the main characters.

And for the two largest characters those are major struggles.  For Laurel, she dropped out of college, a place she wasn't fully familiar with, but also still struggles between her desires to settle down on her family farm and do taxidermy and her feelings that she shouldn't settle.  Those feelings no longer are about her physical location - she's home to stay- but still affect her feelings for Ricky, the boy who was the one from home she felt was too safe....and now is back in her life to her ambivalence.  Then there's also the trauma over the loss of her mother on this same farm....a trauma only exacerbated by strange magical and possibly demonic happenings on the farm (and visions of her mother about them).  Meanwhile there's also Isaac, sort of the secondary protagonist, who's a gay boy with a homophobic and just generally abusive parent (physically, not sexually), who loves (and is loved back) by Garrett....but also feels unwilling to hide his sexuality like Garrett to stay in this southern/midwestern country town that isn't quite friendly for people who are openly gay (both Garrett and Isaac drive out to a gay bar in Cincinnati to enjoy their times, but while those jaunts are enough for Garrett, Isaac doesn't think they're enough even if he'd have to leave Garrett and everyone else behind to go elsewhere).  These struggles work really well and feel like natural and normal struggles for young adults like our lead characters.  

And then there's the horror part of the story, a horror tied to Laurel's farmland and to Laurel's mother, a woman called a witch due to some seemingly magical powers, some fragment of which Laurel has inherited.  Again, as I hinted above the jump, atmospheric horror of things like bones and whatnot here don't really work super well for me, but it's executed seemingly well enough.  And the book does pull one sort of surprise twist in its final act, as it recontextualizes the actions of one character in a way that may surprise readers of similar novels, such that it requires Laurel to make decisions for herself and to resolve some of those ambiguities, even as hard as that is, for the sake of herself, not for what others might have once wanted for her.  There's also some solid themes here of alienation (not just with Isaac) due to being different with the various witch-like characters in Laurel, Christine, and Laurel's mom I should add too.

Which is not to say this is a story that is one that is wholly unpredictable - Isaac's plotline is a pretty classic one, albeit one that is still very relevant - to the point you're kind of surprised at how Laurel is surprised by the revelation of how bad his abusive father is.  Laurel's magic just sort of pops up at times, seemingly just at will, after ages in which she doesn't really know how to do anything.  And the way the twist is resolved in the finale is one that I know I've seen before in at least one prior place.  

But still Wake the Bones is a solid YA Southern Gothic, so if you like these genres, you'll enjoy this one.    It just isn't really the type of genre for me, for better or for worse.  

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