Near the Bone

Near the Bone

by Christina Henry

Blurb:

Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they're not alone after all.

There's something in the woods that wasn't there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws.

When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

My Reaction:

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

Hm, not great.  The first half of the book lacked definite direction, which tried my patience.  There are too many detailed descriptions of what Mattie's doing, and none of it seems to matter (not to mention that I know what "doing X" entails, so don't really need to read a description of it).  Repeatedly, it would feel like something was finally going to happen-- someone was going to do something to set the story into motion-- and then it would all come to nothing, and we were instead meandering off on another tangent.  

The characters don't feel like real people to me.  The worst example of this is the disgustingly abusive William, who is nothing more than a hateful, one-dimensional caricature of a Bad Man with absolutely no nuance or depth to the character.  He doesn't seem to behave like even an evil person would.  He's just all over the place!  (Oh, and Mr. Evil is "Christian".  Of course.  Fits right in with everything he does, including kidnapping, murder, rape, shocking physical violence, and drug-dealing.  Here, author, have an eye-roll.)  

I also found it difficult to believe that Mattie would remember so little of her life before the kidnapping (or that she would recover so amazingly quickly from repeated brutal beatings).  I'm not sure how much of Mattie's story is supposed to be a mystery, but it's pretty obvious from very early on.  I understand that she's been brainwashed and literally beaten into submission, but I spent most of the first half of the book just sitting there willing Mattie to do something.  Maybe that was intentional, but it's so frustrating-- miserable to read.  

Then there's the creature... It's an interesting, rather bold choice to combine two such different types of survival stories-- one about a woman fighting to survive daily life with an abusive kidnapper, another about people trying to escape from an otherworldly creature-- but unfortunately, I don't think it works.  I see the intention, the parallels between the two very different "monsters", but it doesn't fall together as intended.  Instead, it feels like a jumbled mess with little in the way of satisfying conclusion.  (The final confrontation between William and Samantha was predictable and more amusing than emotional.  It felt very "written for the screen", in a cliché type of way.)

What bothered me most was the stupidity of the "three strangers" and the dialogue among those characters, once they come into the story.  It's just... completely wrong.  Surely real people don't act or speak this way, in these situations!  It doesn't ring true, and it makes the characters seem impossibly dumb and immature.  Was that the intention?  Who knows?!  

At about 52% I began skimming, but I read enough to follow the story until to the end.  It didn't redeem itself for me.  Too much of it makes no sense.  For instance, where did the creature come from?  Mattie and William have lived on the mountain for 12 years and the creature just appeared out of the blue in the past year, and yet Mattie says she thinks it's not an alien.  Okay... How would she know that?  And why not, since it just showed up one day?  Also, why was Mattie so shocked by the idea that there might be two of the creatures?  I mean, that's how these things usually work, isn't it?  Unless it was an alien just landed from another planet-- or the last of a species that lives for an exceptionally long time-- or a scout from another area (where, pray tell!)-- there must be more than one.  Right?  Animals, people, and "creatures" don't just pop into existence.  "A man needs sons"?  Well, a cryptid needs cryptlets-- cryptkits?  Whatever you'd call a baby cryptid.  

Meh.  Not a good read, in my opinion.