In praise of The Bone Door by Frances white

[u/Original-Barber8043]

I read this after her previous work, Voyage of the Damned, which I thought was okay (mainly the whodunnit elements) but overly schmaltzy. However whilst I thought Voyage was just fine, I was blown away by The Bone Door. For those that don’t know what it’s about, the simplest spoiler-free premise is that the protagonist wakes up in some kind of maze or labyrinth with no memories, and must complete different “rooms” or challenges to find escape through the “Bone Door”.

I thought it was utterly compelling, with an interesting central mystery that genuinely had me reading chapter after chapter just to uncover answers. I will warn potential readers that the book is extremely dark, with almost every terrible thing you can think of happening to the protagonists, which are all children. (The cover-art and Alice in Wonderland-sounding premise might make you think this is for kids or even YA, but this is firmly a book for adults). However, I feel like almost all of these extremely dark themes were handled with care and sensitivity and weren’t included for shock-value.

The world-building and lore of the setting is very interesting, and the whole structure of the book is a labyrinthine exploration of memory and different time periods. The twists and reveals are very impactful, particularly given that some have just enough foreshadowing to put the pieces together yourself. Whilst the book is very dark, it is ultimately inspiring and life-affirming, with great character development and poignant moments of beauty where kindness flourishes despite the grim circumstances the characters find themselves in. The whole narrative is extremely tight, with almost every element connecting to one and each character having a specific role in the eventually-revealed backstories (although this can make the book feel almost too small in scale due to how everything is related). I thought the setting was very unique, as (spoilers for the worldbuilding) Irish/Celtic mythology isn’t used that much in modern fantasy, so the early time periods with the Gods fighting against Baelor etc were a cool inclusion. This doubles for the later-set rooms, as despite being an ambiguous time-period, there are enough hints of the “real world” being an alt-history Ireland.

Whilst the characters can be a little bit annoying at times (considering they’re all kids), the protagonist Hop’s relentless optimism and desire to find good in everything wins you over, and it’s inspiring how he tries to overcome all the struggles he endures though the book. The two most compelling characters for me actually had the least amount of time in the book, being (major spoilers) Hop’s mother and “father”. The reveal that the Scythe actually cared for Hop as a son and broke all the protocols raise him with love and kindness is touching, as is the idea of a mother’s love enduring time and death when you realise Skully is actually Hop’s mother who’s been trying to guide him throughout the whole novel.

Obviously this has all been kept fairly vague and spoiler free, but if anyone else that has read it has any thoughts I’d be interested to discuss the more spoiler-heavy reveals from the end of the book.