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A review by samidhak
Near the Bone by Christina Henry
2.0
This was very underwhelming. I didn’t really expect this from a Christina Henry book, especially after reading the Alice Chronicles. In this horror-thriller, we follow Mattie who doesn’t remember much about her life before meeting her abusive husband, William. William is an over zealot, who physically, psychologically, and sexually abuses Mattie in the name of religion and “how a wife should behave”. God, I hated him.
The introductory half of the book is pretty solid; we actually root for Mattie to escape not just the hell-hole but also the supernatural creature. It’s the rest of the book that doesn’t make sense. They have been living on this mountain since years, but suddenly we have these supernatural creatures show up, and no one really knows what their deal is. Moreover; instead of sending an actual trained animal control team, 3 young adults decide to track it with limited to no weapons and 0 knowledge. That’s how they come head to head with Mattie and William.
The whole paradigm of the creature was not scary because firstly, it’s described as a bear; which isn’t very scary to be honest, and secondly, we don’t know enough about the creature to actually fear it. What I did fear though, was William and that plot pretty much resolves mid way.
At first I thought that the creature was a metaphor and the focal point of the book was domestic abusive and the terrors it can bring when you’re living with an actual monster, but I guess I overshot that by a long mile because it was actually a literal, uninspired, monster creature.
I don’t know what in tarnation I just read, but I am mega disappointed.
The introductory half of the book is pretty solid; we actually root for Mattie to escape not just the hell-hole but also the supernatural creature. It’s the rest of the book that doesn’t make sense. They have been living on this mountain since years, but suddenly we have these supernatural creatures show up, and no one really knows what their deal is. Moreover; instead of sending an actual trained animal control team, 3 young adults decide to track it with limited to no weapons and 0 knowledge. That’s how they come head to head with Mattie and William.
The whole paradigm of the creature was not scary because firstly, it’s described as a bear; which isn’t very scary to be honest, and secondly, we don’t know enough about the creature to actually fear it. What I did fear though, was William and that plot pretty much resolves mid way.
At first I thought that the creature was a metaphor and the focal point of the book was domestic abusive and the terrors it can bring when you’re living with an actual monster, but I guess I overshot that by a long mile because it was actually a literal, uninspired, monster creature.
I don’t know what in tarnation I just read, but I am mega disappointed.