Ryn is a gravedigger, and a struggling one at that. After her father's disappearance and her mother's death, Ryn makes ends meet for her and her siblings by grave-digging in Colbren, the village in which they live that sits at the base of a formidable mountain range that used to house a fae king. But there's a problem: the dead don't always stay dead, and it's hard to convince people to bury their loved ones when there's a chance that they'll come back as bone houses. And there's debts that need Ryn is a gravedigger, and a struggling one at that. After her father's disappearance and her mother's death, Ryn makes ends meet for her and her siblings by grave-digging in Colbren, the village in which they live that sits at the base of a formidable mountain range that used to house a fae king. But there's a problem: the dead don't always stay dead, and it's hard to convince people to bury their loved ones when there's a chance that they'll come back as bone houses. And there's debts that need to be paid.Ellis is a mapmaker, and a mysterious one at that. He has no last name, and no past that he can remember besides being brought to the royal fortress as a child and being raised as...well, not quite a noble, but close enough. He has mapmaking reasons for travelling to Colbren—it lies on the remotest edges of the kingdom and is largely unmapped, especially the uncharted mountain range that lies beyond the town—but he has other, secret reasons as well. When Ellis arrives in Colbren, the bone houses suddenly attack with renewed ferocity, which drives Ryn and Ellis into the mountains to discover the source of the magic that causes people to rise from the dead. All they're armed with is an old folktale about how the bone houses came to be, an axe, a broken spoon, and a goat. PROS:
Folklore-based necromancy story. Awesome. Necromancy seems to be on the rise in YA lit, and I'm all for it.A emotional plot based on loss, familial love, how hard it can be to let someone go and move on.The most badass goat in all of literature.Vaguely Scottish. Had no bearing on the plot but I dug it.Dope cover. Intriguing characters. Ryn is this formidable, grave-digging seventeen-year old, who carries a lot of loss on her shoulders so her family doesn't have to. She's constantly grieving for her parents, one of whom disappeared, so she's saddled with the not-knowing, and in a world where the dead don't stay dead, where her dad could possibly show up on her doorstep as a zombie, that is worse. Ellis is quieter and gentler, but no less formidable. He's got this quiet intensity and confidence that he only shows when he needs to. And he also carries the loss of his family, a family he never knew. Abandoned and raised in a world that he wasn't meant to grow up in. Always wondering where his family is, if they're alive, why they abandoned him. All of this could have hardened him into an unlikable character, but he is kind, gentle, and honest. Two of my favorite YA characters in recent memory; their banter throughout the journey is great. CONS:
I'm not crazy about the name "bone houses" but it's hard to put a spin on the zombie genre and I'm glad that Emily Lloyd-Jones found a way to do so, so this is nitpicky.The plot gets a little repetitive on reflection—something happens followed by bone house encounter—but I was so into this that I didn't care.It's also fairly predictable, but again, I was so into the story that I didn't care. All in all, an intriguing, exciting necromancy fairy tale that deals with emotionally charged issues like loss and moving on from the death of a family member. Highly recommended.*Thank you to Little, Brown for sending me an ARC!*
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