Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

What price would you pay for power?

Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil is the lesbian vampire book of my dreams. It’s not quite a romance. It features a romance, sure. Which is toxic and messy and glorious and ends in disaster. But the book is more a about female rage and wanting to break free from the expectations and shackles of womanhood. The women want more and in pursuit of freedom they lose themselves and their humanity. V.E. Schwab is an artist- an incredible writer both in pose and storytelling. She uses different POV’s in a way that I found very interesting and fits a story about immortality quite well. The book is quite character driven. The protagonists were mostly unlikeable, and I loved it. Alice was whiny, Sabine was nothing short of a monster, and Charlotte was a hypocrite. And that’s what made them feel real. They were unapologetically flawed, corrupted by a power that had promised them freedom. Or maybe there was darkness in them all along. V.E. Schwab didn’t try to make them into perfect heroines or “strong women” protagonists and that’s what made the story work. Were they villains? Anti-heroes? Tragic heroes? Does it even matter? I am begging V.E Schwab to write more lesbian fiction. Stop holding out on us, please.

“To the ones who hunger - for love, for time, or simply to be free”

Bewertet: Buch (Taschenbuch)

In the beginning I had such high hopes - the gothic atmosphere was there, the longing, the female rage... I absolutely loved it. But by the end of it I was left with a rotten aftertaste. The last 200 pages were unbelievably dull. All of its initial promise got lost along the way. The characters never grew on me and felt one-dimensional, simple, verging on idiotic. This was like a flat, toothless caricature of a gothic novel - a bland and boring imitation in a headache-inducing, repetitive writing style. And I hate to say that it felt superficial, like it was trying to make a point about too many things without really commiting to any of them - trying to sound complex and sophisticated without knowing the meaning of the word. It’s maddening when it could have been so much more, if it had commited to its haunting allure, or to something a little more sinister. But it didn’t, so it fell flat for me. I’m sure others will read this book and fully enjoy it. Although I can’t imagine anyone enjoying the way that it ends. And yes, I’m moping because I wanted the story to go a different way. I was ready to love this book wholeheartedly and make it a new favorite, but then... I was just glad to be done with it.