Title: Bone Gap Author: Laura Ruby
Published: March 3, 2015
Genre(s): Magical Realism
Page Count: 373
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps—gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O’Sullivan on their own. Just a few years before, their mother had high-tailed it to Oregon for a brand new guy, a brand new life. That’s just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame?
Finn knows that’s not what happened with Roza. He knows she was kidnapped, ripped from the cornfields by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember. But the searches turned up nothing, and no one believes him anymore. Not even Sean, who has more reason to find Roza than anyone, and every reason to blame Finn for letting her go.
As we follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap—their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, their uncertain futures—acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness—a story about how the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are.
For me, Bone Gap almost feels like it’s too far removed from anything else I’ve ever experienced to properly pin down. Yet on second thought, the individual story elements are all things I’ve experienced before, and, in terms of tone/atmosphere, the book reminds me a lot of Kate Karyus Quinn’s (Don’t You) Forget About Me. What’s different, I think, is how Laura Ruby combines all these things to create a subtle, yet strong, message about female worth and the value our society places upon beauty.
When you first look at this novel, it’s about Finn. Finn, who’s just a bit off. Finn, who everyone in the town of Bone Gap thinks is too spacey and too dreamy. Finn, whose mother abandoned him and whose brother hates him. Finn, who witnessed his friend’s kidnapping but who can’t get anyone to believe him.
But I don’t think Bone Gap is about Finn. It’s about Roza, “the most beautiful woman in the world”, and it’s about Petey, so ugly boys only go out with her out of pity. Two young women whose appearance has come to be their defining characteristic, whose reputation is built upon the superficial. These two characters are the foundation upon which the story rests, and the ways in which Ruby is able to deconstruct the superficial judgments of society are what made the novel for me.
Roza is worth more than a pretty face. Petey is not worthless because she isn’t traditionally beautiful. This is what Bone Gap proves, and yes, Finn seems to be the connection between these characters. He might be seen as the rescuer, even—but Roza and Petey are capable of saving themselves, and they do. They determine their own value, not Finn or the people of Bone Gap.
This message, quiet and unassuming, is woven throughout the book. I didn’t feel that Ruby was in-your-face with her feminism, but it was certainly there, and what she had to say was important for any reader, but maybe especially for a teen audience. I love what Bone Gap has done, and how it was accomplished. This is a novel of myth and magic and set amid Midwestern cornfields and humid summer nights with a message about beauty and societal perceptions that was mature and, ultimately, very rewarding.
