{"id":39632,"date":"2015-09-17T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=39632"},"modified":"2019-12-01T22:38:51","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T03:38:51","slug":"bone-gap-laura-ruby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/bone-gap-laura-ruby\/","title":{"rendered":"Bone Gap by Laura Ruby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bone<\/a>This week, the National Book Foundation<\/a> is releasing the longlists category by category, day by day, for the coveted National Book Award (winners will be announced November 18). Included among\u00a0the 10 titles cited for “Young People’s Literature<\/a>” is Laura Ruby<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Bone Gap<\/em>. [I confess\u00a0I have fingers, toes, eyeballs crossed for Nimona<\/a><\/i>.]\n

A few months ago, I read (stuck in the ear, excitably narrated by Dan Bittner) the quirky hybrid\u00a0\u2013 part contemporary coming-of-age (albeit the lack of constant screen addiction is refreshingly nostalgic), part other-world fantasy. For various reasons, I\u00a0decided then I wouldn’t post about it, but the recent NBA announcement has landed the title\u00a0here after all.<\/p>\n

Quick-ish summary? Brothers Finn, 17, and Sean, 21, have spent the last two years living without their mother who ran\u00a0off to Oregon\u00a0with an orthodontist she met online. For a short,\u00a0bright time, a mysterious young woman named Roza\u00a0\u2013 initially found injured and hiding in the brothers’\u00a0barn \u2013 has helped create something that resembles a happy\u00a0family. Then Roza disappears. Most of\u00a0Bone Gap’s residents are convinced Roza \u2013 much like their mother \u2013 abandoned the boys, but Finn continues to insist\u00a0he saw her being\u00a0kidnapped, although he can’t seem to describe the abductor. While Sean broods, Finn falls in love for the first time, and finds an ally who believes in his visions. The most unexpected hero eventually saves everyone, including himself.<\/p>\n

Love, betrayal, promises, magic, evil, and a rare illness called prosopagnosia, comprise\u00a0an\u00a0intriguing story, blending realism with a magical other world. Critics have recognized Bone Gap<\/em>\u00a0with starred reviews, and now this\u00a0NBA-longlisted recognition\u00a0… ah well, which is why silence seems no longer an option.<\/p>\n[Spoiler alert, although I’ll try to keep the\u00a0leakage\u00a0to a minimum …]\n

Here’s the\u00a0disturbing bottom line message about this contemporary fairy tale of good vs.\u00a0evil: women are\u00a0valued\u00a0and victimized\u00a0solely for\u00a0their appearance. Roza \u2013 who is intelligent\u00a0enough to get herself\u00a0from her small village\u00a0through university in Poland, and then to continue her education at an American university \u2013 is constantly threatened by others’ reactions to her\u00a0beauty. She’s hunted, kidnapped, and imprisoned solely because she’s the “most beautiful” woman; freedom is only possible when she\u00a0literally slices away that coveted beauty. In Bone Gap, teenage Petey is bullied and maligned because her face is considered so ugly; she can only be loved by a boy who is clinically unable to\u00a0recognize, identify, comprehend faces.<\/p>\n

What can you say about a (lauded) title that seems so dismissive, even abusive of girls and women?\u00a0Its\u00a0target audience is young readers, and girls read overwhelmingly more than boys.\u00a0Now with an\u00a0NBA-nod,\u00a0it’s been granted further literary gravitas, with book sales surely\u00a0trending substantially upward.<\/p>\n

Bone Gap<\/em> is not the first, and it certainly won’t the last of such titles in which women are so mistreated. It is, however, one of the most visceral I’ve ever encountered.\u00a0I shudder. What else can I say, but … readers\u00a0will read, but\u00a0readers\u00a0beware.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, the National Book Foundation is releasing the longlists category by category, day by day, for the coveted National Book Award (winners will be announced November 18). Included among\u00a0the 10 titles cited for “Young People’s Literature” is Laura Ruby\u2019s\u00a0Bone Gap. [I confess\u00a0I have fingers,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,6,60,31],"tags":[6606,6608,58,933,123,168,6607,13,39,44,35],"class_list":["post-39632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-fiction","category-nonethnic-specific","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bone-gap","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-dan-bittner","tag-illness","tag-kidnapping","tag-laura-ruby","tag-love","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-siblings","tag-speculative-fantasy"],"yoast_head":"\nBone Gap by Laura Ruby - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/bone-gap-laura-ruby\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bone Gap by Laura Ruby - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week, the National Book Foundation is releasing the longlists category by category, day by day, for the coveted National Book Award (winners will be announced November 18). 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