Death & Fairy Tales in The Bone Houses: A Book Review
The Bones Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones is about a zombie apocalypse with people being attacked and killed by unthinking monsters that have been dubbed "bones houses" (as opposed to skeletons). But it has other layers that give a respite from the death. We briefly meet Aderyn's family and the villagers of the Welsh town of Colbren. We see Ryn and Ellis's relationship develop at a good pace in both the hectic and quiet moments. The writing and the atmosphere are simple with adequate detail to keep the reader interested while providing a fairy tale essence and a touch of Gothic poetry.
The brother tugged at her arm, but she shook him off. "You can't." he said. "We aren't allowed."
The girl ignored him.
The forest was beautiful—lush with ferns and thick with moss. At first, all was well [...] She laughed and played until evening fell.
With the creeping darkness, things came awake.
A figure stood nearby, watching her. For one moment, she thought it was her father. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, but too thin around the waist and wrists.
And when the man came closer, she realized it was not a man at all.
It could not be. Not with a face of raw bone, with bared teeth and hollow eye sockets. She had seen bodies before, but they were always gently wrapped in clean cloths and then lowered into the ground. They were peaceful. This thing moved slowly under the weight of armor, and a sword jutted from a belt. And it stank. (2-3)
Summary
It has been about a century since the Otherking, Arawn, left the Arrwyn Mountains. Humans live nearby in the forgotten village of Colbren, the magic of the Otherking having faded over time. But Ryn discovers a bone house as a young girl.
Unperturbed, she learns about the forest and the grave digging trade from her father until he goes missing on a scouting expedition. In her late teens, Ryn is the head of the house and living with her siblings while struggling to pay back her Uncle's debts to the greedy Lord Eynon. The village grows poorer with each passing year and her family's future looks bleak until, Ellis, an aspiring mapmaker with no last name, arrives to literally put the village on the map as he searches for his parents.
But the bone houses begin to rise up more and more, eventually attacking the village. Ryn and Ellis take on the task of going into the mountains to find the source of Arawn's magic and put an end to the bone houses.
-- Spoilers --
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| Photo by KoolShooters |
Characters
Aderyn "Ryn" verch Gwyn: Eldest sister to Gareth and Ceridwen; took up her father's profession and became the village's grave digger; fears losing her family; respects the dead; has a feral nature when provoked.
Gareth: Brother to Ryn and Ceridwen and is the middle child; likes a clean appearance; cooks; handles the household's accounts; cares for his family and repeatedly proposes that they leave the village for a better future.
Ceridwen "Ceri": Youngest sister to Ryn and Gareth; has a sweet face, but is capable of having terrible ideas; loves animals and baking; is smarter than one would assume for someone of her age; is courageous and kind.
Ellis: Aspiring mapmaker; adopted son by the area's prince; was found by the prince as a young boy in the forest; lives with a disability and chronic pain from an unknown incident; keeps to himself; was bullied and therefore believes no one bother to help him with anything.
Lord Eynon: The prince's representative and a nobleman; lives in Colbren and oversees various aspects of the village, including the mine's operations and the stocking of the granary; is greedy and abuses his power.
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Fairy Tale Elements
Many of us grew up with fairy tales. It was most likely our bedtime story. But why do we love fairy tales? Is it only the magic, or is there more to it?
The Bone Houses has various elements that bring a fairy tale to life:
- Magic: The story heavily relies on the presence of magic because the bone houses wouldn't exist without it. They are the main magical creature. The other creature has a brief appearance and it is the afanc, a creature described as having the head of a crocodile and the body of a beaver, but much much larger than a beaver. And it's demonic and protective of its waters. The magic is the star attraction that intrigues readers. Without it, the story would be rather dull.
- Legend: Without the tale of the Otherking and the mother who tried to save her son with the magic cauldron, Ryn and Ellis wouldn't know what was going on or how to stop the bone houses, thereby bringing the story to a screeching halt.
- The Quest: Thanks to the legend, Ryn and Ellis have a rough plan of where to go and what to do in order to stop the bone houses.
- Royalty: According to the International Storyteller, "Fairy tales are full of strong contrasts. Contrasts in an oral tale make for a strong telling. The main character is often poor and powerless, so their opposite must be rich and powerful: royalty." Royals are also like celebrities and appear to lead a glamorous life, which everyone wants to hear about. Lord Eynon has the place of royalty since he is the prince's representative of Colbren and lords the uncle's debts over Ryn and her siblings.
- Moral: Traditional fairy tales are short and have a lesson to teach the reader. The Bones Houses demonstrates that death is part of life, whether we like it or not, and we must let our loved ones go when it's their time. If you hold on past the limit, all you have is a false sense of what it used to be like and you're wasting your own life in the process. There is life after grief.
While The Bone Houses have these elements, it also has layers, thereby going beyond the traditional fairy tale. The bone houses are the main problem, but Ryn has two issues that motivate her to go into the mountains with Ellis: Lord Eynon is trying to take their home because he wants them to pay their Uncle's debts and her family is hiding the truth about their Uncle's whereabouts. Ellis has his own problem: He can't find his family and doesn't have any memories of who he is.
Most of the main characters are three-dimensional. We get an in-depth look at Gareth and Ceri and the relationship between Ryn and Ellis develops at a steady pace. (As a personal preference, neither one of them is drooling over the other; it is a slow and healthy type of love not based on appearances).
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What I Liked
As a lover of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I enjoyed the theme of eternity and whether people should live on after death, especially if they aren't quite themselves anymore. It certainly reflects reality when families have relatives that need caregiving and other members can't bear the thought of them dying because they are all the members have ever known.
Treatment of Disabilities
The Bone Houses also has a character with a disability, which is something new for me to come across in fiction. My experience with someone who has a disability is limited, so I find this book seemed to be sensitive toward this topic and voiced some concerns that some readers may not be aware of. For example, Ellis explains to Ryn why he didn't tell her about his arm and chronic pain:
Ellis: "To tell people is to invite pity [...] or worse, advice."
Ryn: "Advice?"
Ellis: "Herbs to try, [...] Stretches. Leeches, one time. People cannot simply let me be. They have to find a way to fix me."
Ryn: "You're not broken."
Ellis: "I know, [...] But it's difficult to convince the world of that most of the time." (212)
This conversation points out two things: Firstly, people want to help and the only way they think they can is by suggesting possible solutions (which the person with the disability has probably already tried or the "solutions" have no connection to the disability in the first place); Secondly, by suggesting "solutions," it implies that there is something wrong with the person because they have a disability. I've listened to various videos by Jessica Kellgren-Fozard and she has talked about this type of scenario in addition to many other aspects of living with a disability and chronic illness.
Ellis also mentions how "[p]eople think pain makes [him] weak—or worse, strong." (212) He doesn't want to be inspirational just for existing, which is what Kellgren-Fozard talks about in this video:
The Zombie/Walking Dead/Apocalypse Tropes
I've never been one to watch movies dealing with zombies or the walking dead or apocalypses. When I do so, it's with some resistance because I don't like gore. I have watched Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island and Warm Bodies and I have read I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi (there many be a few others that I can't think of). I only have Rishi's book and The Bones Houses because of OwlCrate, otherwise, I don't think I would have read them. Essentially, I am not familiar with the zombie and apocalypse tropes, so I may be missing some elements here.
(Spoiler for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island in upcoming paragraph)
Various bone houses don't attack while others do. The first few we see, whether they're attacking or not, Ryn apologizes, cuts them down to pieces with her trusty axe, bags them and burns them at the local blacksmith's forge. Because of how the bone houses are initially represented, I had various theories. One of which was that the first bone house Ryn encountered could suck out her soul or take something of her, thereby marking her with death (or something along these lines). Then later, Ellis is attacked and Ryn specifically says that the bone house was trying to drag him "towards the mountain." I had a feeling the bones houses are much like those in Zombie Island, meaning that they are not the enemy. And I was right. The magic was using them to return Ellis (alive) to his mother. So, I liked that the bone houses weren't mindless; they still had their own essence from when they were alive.
I found that zombie/walking dead tropes consist of a "pro killer" with a "unusual trademark weapon" and there may be a "martial arts female hero":
- Ryn could be deemed the pro killer of the book, but this is only because she's the one of three people who believe in and have seen the bone houses. And then, there is the debate about whether or not the bone houses are "alive." If they're not, is she killing them?
- Ryn is the female fighter of the book. She's in good physical shape from years of gravedigging. but she isn't trained in any type of fighting. She is a feral creature who relies on instinct and her axe.
- Ryn's axe isn't unusual. She uses it because her father used it. (We aren't told he used it on bone houses, so she may have simply adopted it for that activity.) It's also a tool for families who live on the outskirts of villages for landscaping and wood cutting.
All in all, I felt like there were echoes of these tropes in The Bones Houses, but it wasn't anything that made me roll my eyes or sigh; it fits in well with the rest of the story's elements.
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| Photo by Francisco Perez Carrasco on Unsplash |
Closure
I like that the Lloyd-Jones didn't have Ryn recognize her father when he's a bone house or see him a second time after she realizes. There wouldn't have been much point because death separates them and he can't return the communication easily. There is also the question of whether it is her father being kept alive by the magic or if it's a version of him created by the magic to help find Ellis. With her father helping them and returning the love spoon to her, Ryn gets closure. And I'm happy that that loose end is tied up. I was waiting for him to return as a bone house.
What I Didn't Like
Since her father disappeared and had such an impact on her path in life, Ryn's chapters focus a lot on him. Unfortunately, character backstories are not balanced and her mother and Uncle are left in the dark. With the Uncle's story being a fair part of their current financial situation with Lord Eynon, I find that the Uncle should have had more backstory other than he moved in with them after the father disappeared, wasn't nice and gambled a lot. Already the Uncle showing up as a bone house is surprising for the reader, so having a little more backstory, like what he was doing before coming to Colbren, would provide a more fleshed out character and stop the reader (in this case, me) from going "What!?" at the surprise that he's a bone house, which is what the author wants, but also at the surprise of why he's suddenly an actual character in the story. I think even if we were shown or told about his abusive side early on, the author could still surprise readers by having him show up as a bone house. We don't even know what he looks like. The mother is also barely in the picture or even mentioned. She got sick and died, but we don't know specifics. Was it even a natural death?
I had a hard time understanding the time difference between the legend of the mother using the cauldron to save her son and when Ellis was found by the prince. Although, Ellis's identity wasn't hard to suspect prior to the grand reveal at the Otherking's castle, I still feel like a little more clarity could have been added for when the prince found Ellis. I understand that legends are generally unreliable, so adding elements, such as Ellis's age or the actually year of when he was found, would have helped.
In the first scene with Lord Eynon, Ryn threatens him about knowing that he steals money from the prince's coffers. However, I cannot recall if it's ever explained how she knows. What proof is there? Sure, he is written as greedy in his descriptions, but is this common knowledge or just hearsay? Did Ryn guess? In this instance, I may have missed a detail that clarifies it, so if anyone finds it, feel free to leave a comment!
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| Photo by Kevin Jackson on Unsplash |
Conclusion
I was surprised that I enjoyed The Bones Houses as much as I did. It wasn't as gross as I expected it to be and appealed to my love of fairy tales and the Gothic.
As someone who is afraid of death, it was refreshing to read about a character (Ryn) who doesn't fear death itself, but rather losing people to it. Like The Doctor, I hate endings. I hate having to say goodbye, but I hate when people leave without saying goodbye even more. I need that acknowledgement that they are leaving. I need some closure, whether they're gone for the day or permanently. With my first dog, I saw he was getting older, so for about three years, I played with him more and kissed him as if it were the last time whenever I had to leave the house. I was mentally prepared and knew that I had to endure the pain when he did finally pass. I knew I had to grieve and that one day, it would get easier.
Another aspect of the book that I love is the debate of whether it was wrong of Ryn to end the "lives" of the bones houses, particularly the ones living peacefully in the forest. It's like the big questions of Hamlet: "Is he insane in the play or just pretending as he initially states? Is it both?
I recommend this book. It has a well-structured story and modern characters with whom readers today can identify that are in a fairy tale setting and Gothic atmosphere perfect for escapism.
I could definitely see a prequel that shows the era of when the Otherking establishes his kingdom and how his reality compares to the legends Ryn shares with Ellis.
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