Bone Gap is a small town where everyone knows each other on a first name basis. It's also a small enough town where your personal life can become community property. No one knows this better than Sean and Finn. Living alone without any parents to help (and everyone knows how that happened), Sean works full time and looks after his younger brother who is still in high school. Dreams were given up as well as the cameraderie brothers had. Finn knows this only too well, but can do nothing about it. He misses his older brother even though they're in the same room and when Roza left, the gap became larger in the brothers' relationship.
Roza came to Bone Gap quite unexpectedly. Born and raised in Poland, she left her home country for the opportunity to be in America, but what she saw and experienced were darker and bleaker than she imagined. Sean found Roza and gave her time to find herself again. While others were struck by her beauty, Sean gazed at her beyond the beauty and began to fall in love with the woman. No one had ever done that before. In turn, Roza helps Sean and Finn find the bindings that loosened between them and she also became part of the family...until the day she disappeared. Finn saw it happen, but there are gaps to what he saw. He couldn't tell you what the man who took her looked like and wouldn't even be able to recognize him in a line-up because Finn is unable to recognize faces.
Petey likes to live in the solitary gaps she finds. People talk about her, know her story, but do they really? She's the pretty girl with an ugly face and the honeybees she helps tend with her mother allows her to take cover from what everyone says about her...until one night when Finn arrives at her house on a dark horse. They go on the most magical ride, falling into the gaps between the world they live in and the other world that exists between. The more Petey and Finn spend time together, the more their gaps are filled with much-needed love and acceptance.
The man took Roza because she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He told her he would never hurt her until she came to love him. He offers her the finest things in beautiful places, but whatever the facade may be, it is still a prison. He also knows Finn is searching for Roza and is working to create a gap large enough where Roza will never be found. Little does he know how resourceful, strong and patient his beautiful prize can be.
Told in alternating stories between Finn (for the most part) and Roza, the reader is immersed into a beautiful story of reality and fantasy. Roza's world is fantastical and horrible at the same time while Finn lives in the real world that is becoming more beautiful every day. Ruby's writing flows with emotion and beauty, taking the reader beyond the pages to the heart of the book - one about the importance of relationships. It's been awhile since I last cried while reading a book, and this one I couldn't help myself. It wasn't out of sadness, but out of the beauty and deep strong characters Laura Ruby crafts in this novel. Magical realism at it's best in this book. Highly recommended.
Other magical realism book pairs:
1 comment:
I'm glad to see that you enjoyed this one. It definitely sounds very unique and I like that in a book.
Krystianna @ Downright Dystopian
Post a Comment