Jan 30

Jan 30 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

About the book

Author: V.E. Schwab
Publisher: Tor

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print or ebook) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

With every book she writes, VE Schwab demonstrates why I’ll read every book she writes. Normally, I wait to read an advanced copy until a month or so before pub date, but with Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, I couldn’t wait longer than January (it comes out in June).

Bones has the heart and voice of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, but it’s darker and, as Schwab says, hungrier. In this novel, we have three main characters born (and turned) at different points in history, all queer women, all impossible to look away from. The story spans centuries, as all the best stories do.

I savored it over the course of a month, sinking in every time I opened the book. Prose, pacing, plot, character — Schwab truly does it all and does it better than most. I will never get over how she can write stories that feel wholly unique and yet also like coming home to the reader you are in your heart.

As I read it, I most deeply felt that this book was about the parts of ourselves we give up in taking what we want, and how even the best intentions don’t come without accountability — and yet the defiant hope in those exact same things, in persisting, in the pursuit of a life you chose. But I also had the great joy of attending a small, early press event, and so I got to hear Schwab talk about how it’s also about the intoxication of being seen, particularly as a queer person, and so much more.

Be warned, there’s plenty of death and blood here — it IS about vampires, after all. But even if that’s not usually your thing (it’s not usually mine), I think you will love this book as much as I did.