Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

Amy   

fantasy

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is told from multiple perspectives.  Maria is married off to a viscount in the 1500s. She is beautiful and clever and does what she can to retain some power over her own life. Charlotte lives in Britain in the 1800s and is sent to her aunt’s house to prepare to attract a husband. Alice is a Scottish college student in America in 2019 who has never felt like she fit in. All three young women are facing transitions that become even more difficult than they had intended.

I went into this novel blind, without knowing anything about it other than it was written by the fabulous V. E. Schwab and I’m so glad I hadn’t read anything about the plot! The central story theme was a surprise to me. If I’d known about it ahead of time, I fear I might not have read it because I’ve read a lot of books in this “genre” and am sort of burnt out on it. But, without giving anything away, I’ll just say that this was a fun story with Schwab’s signature creativity, humor, and darkness. It’s not my favorite novel of hers that I’ve read but I did enjoy it and its inclusive cast of characters.

My main complaint is that I felt Schwab went too much into Alice’s back story. It had so much detail which didn’t seem to be important. These sections sometimes sucked the momentum out of the novel, especially after the halfway point when I felt that I already had a pretty clear understanding of Alice’s childhood. 

The audiobook had three narrators: Julia Whelan voiced Maria and her snarky tone worked perfectly for that character. She’s always a terrific voice actor. Katie Leung voiced Alice. I do wish she’d have spoken slower with her Scottish accent. I had no trouble understanding her but I felt like she flew through the material too quickly sometimes. Otherwise, she also seemed perfectly cast for the part. Marisa Calin voiced Charlotte. She’s got that sort of panicked, on the verge of losing it, way of speaking—quickly with staccato…sort of a British high class, whiny, high-strung quality. It grated on me for some reason. While I didn’t appreciate the quality of her voice, she did a good job with the voice acting. All three narrators had to display a few different accents and did a good job with that. I’ll give them an A- as an ensemble.