Cage of Bone by Leanne Beattie
Publisher: self-published, 2011
Genre: YA
Sub-genre: contemporary
Rating: 3 pints of blood
I love the composition, the contrast in colours, and the body language of our cover model. Herein be teen angst. Pretty, pretty teen angst. I do wish, though, that our cover girl here looked more 1980s, since that's when the book is set. The book does make specific reference to big hair, after all. But then again, it might not be such an appealing cover if it had more '80s to it, so possible we're better off with the cover art as is.
I honestly can't remember how I came to have this book, but the fact that it's available as a 99 cent e-book probably has a lot to do with it. Something about the summary clearly intrigued me enough to drop a dollar on it (yup, I'm a big spender), so here we are.
This book is about a young woman dealing with her grief over her sister's suicide. Trigger warnings ahoy.
Veronica, known to her friends as Ronnie, has always looked up to her perfect older sister Katherine. So to say it's a shock when Katherine slits her wrists in the bathtub is an understatement. Ronnie can't understand why her sister would do such a thing. Her parents are hardly helping matters, between her alcoholic mother and her father who abandoned them to have a baby with his new girlfriend.
Ronnie's teachers at school keep trying to get her to "share her feelings," but she has no intention of opening up to any of them. How could they possibly understand what she's feeling when she doesn't understand it herself? And the nasty rumours going around about Katherine aren't helping matters. Really, Ronnie just wants everyone to leave her alone... well, except possibly Griffin, the music-loving guy at school every girl seems to have a crush on.
As aforementioned, Cage of Bone is set in the '80s, which is a refreshing change and certainly something that helps the book to stand out. It wasn't something I expected heading in, but was a pleasant surprise. Once I got past the sense of "oh hey, this is different!", though, I wondered why Beattie had made the decision to set the book when she did. The story could have happened in any time period. Veronica makes passing mentions to music and clothes from the '80s, but aside from that, reading the book would lead me to believe nothing else has changed since then.
I'm not sure why I thought this book was a paranormal. Maybe I'd read about her conversations with her dead sister and misinterpreted them. Certainly the book itself is a bit coy in the beginning as to whether Veronica's conversations with Katherine are real or imagined, but since the conversations taper off as Ronnie begins to heal and there's no mention of any other paranormal elements, you can draw your own conclusions.
And that right there is ultimately the biggest flaw in the book. Cage of Bone leaves a lot to the reader's imagination, and while this can be a good thing, the book relies on the reader to fill in too many blanks. It's very short, a novella-length story, and rather than reaching any resolution, the ending just kind of tapers off. I don't need anything to be tied up in a neat little box, and I don't expect to see Ronnie magically healed. But we never find out about what happened to Katherine, we don't see how Griffin and Ronnie's relationship fares, there's no mention of what happens with Veronica's mother (who needs help at least as much as Veronica herself)... there's no real conclusion to the book, it just kind of runs out of words and stops. The story really needed to take the time to grow into a full-sized novel and flesh things out.
There are a lot of time jumps, many of which are so unspecified it's nearly impossible to figure out how much time has passed. The choppy scene transitions don't help. The first scene follows Veronica and her mother finding Katherine in the bathtub, and then we cut to the funeral. Immediately following is a scene that brings us to the first day of school, and I have no idea how long after the funeral that is. Days? Weeks? Months? The book doesn't tell us. At only a few intervals are we given any indication of time passing, and even then it's on the vague side.
Veronica herself is both realistic and frustrating. She is utterly, vividly believeable in her grief as she spirals into self-destruction. She explores several different venues in an attempt to numb herself, (yes, this book is definitely aimed at older teens) and her journey is inarguably the strongest part of the book. It's not an easy read, but then it's not meant to be, since it centres around her grief. Sometimes I want to throttle her, but that reaction stems from how well she's depicted and the unrelenting realism in the fallout of the suicide of someone close to her.
Cage of Bone is available in trade paperback
or as an e-book
.
Genre: YA
Sub-genre: contemporary
Rating: 3 pints of blood
I love the composition, the contrast in colours, and the body language of our cover model. Herein be teen angst. Pretty, pretty teen angst. I do wish, though, that our cover girl here looked more 1980s, since that's when the book is set. The book does make specific reference to big hair, after all. But then again, it might not be such an appealing cover if it had more '80s to it, so possible we're better off with the cover art as is.
I honestly can't remember how I came to have this book, but the fact that it's available as a 99 cent e-book probably has a lot to do with it. Something about the summary clearly intrigued me enough to drop a dollar on it (yup, I'm a big spender), so here we are.
This book is about a young woman dealing with her grief over her sister's suicide. Trigger warnings ahoy.
Veronica, known to her friends as Ronnie, has always looked up to her perfect older sister Katherine. So to say it's a shock when Katherine slits her wrists in the bathtub is an understatement. Ronnie can't understand why her sister would do such a thing. Her parents are hardly helping matters, between her alcoholic mother and her father who abandoned them to have a baby with his new girlfriend.
Ronnie's teachers at school keep trying to get her to "share her feelings," but she has no intention of opening up to any of them. How could they possibly understand what she's feeling when she doesn't understand it herself? And the nasty rumours going around about Katherine aren't helping matters. Really, Ronnie just wants everyone to leave her alone... well, except possibly Griffin, the music-loving guy at school every girl seems to have a crush on.
As aforementioned, Cage of Bone is set in the '80s, which is a refreshing change and certainly something that helps the book to stand out. It wasn't something I expected heading in, but was a pleasant surprise. Once I got past the sense of "oh hey, this is different!", though, I wondered why Beattie had made the decision to set the book when she did. The story could have happened in any time period. Veronica makes passing mentions to music and clothes from the '80s, but aside from that, reading the book would lead me to believe nothing else has changed since then.
I'm not sure why I thought this book was a paranormal. Maybe I'd read about her conversations with her dead sister and misinterpreted them. Certainly the book itself is a bit coy in the beginning as to whether Veronica's conversations with Katherine are real or imagined, but since the conversations taper off as Ronnie begins to heal and there's no mention of any other paranormal elements, you can draw your own conclusions.
And that right there is ultimately the biggest flaw in the book. Cage of Bone leaves a lot to the reader's imagination, and while this can be a good thing, the book relies on the reader to fill in too many blanks. It's very short, a novella-length story, and rather than reaching any resolution, the ending just kind of tapers off. I don't need anything to be tied up in a neat little box, and I don't expect to see Ronnie magically healed. But we never find out about what happened to Katherine, we don't see how Griffin and Ronnie's relationship fares, there's no mention of what happens with Veronica's mother (who needs help at least as much as Veronica herself)... there's no real conclusion to the book, it just kind of runs out of words and stops. The story really needed to take the time to grow into a full-sized novel and flesh things out.
There are a lot of time jumps, many of which are so unspecified it's nearly impossible to figure out how much time has passed. The choppy scene transitions don't help. The first scene follows Veronica and her mother finding Katherine in the bathtub, and then we cut to the funeral. Immediately following is a scene that brings us to the first day of school, and I have no idea how long after the funeral that is. Days? Weeks? Months? The book doesn't tell us. At only a few intervals are we given any indication of time passing, and even then it's on the vague side.
Veronica herself is both realistic and frustrating. She is utterly, vividly believeable in her grief as she spirals into self-destruction. She explores several different venues in an attempt to numb herself, (yes, this book is definitely aimed at older teens) and her journey is inarguably the strongest part of the book. It's not an easy read, but then it's not meant to be, since it centres around her grief. Sometimes I want to throttle her, but that reaction stems from how well she's depicted and the unrelenting realism in the fallout of the suicide of someone close to her.
Cage of Bone is available in trade paperback
or as an e-book
.