This was a good book.

And that’s my review, folks! Just kidding. But I am struggling to figure out exactly what else to say. Bone Gap, Ruby’s last foray into YA magical realism, absolutely blew me away. This didn’t. I never felt bored reading it, I could tell how much love and effort Ruby put into it, there were parts where the writing was positively beautiful, it used ghosts in new and interesting ways (which is something I personally love). It uses fantasy to tackle issues of misogyny, but without falling into the trap that keeps many books about sexism from being great - by which I mean it did not pretend that all women struggle equally, it did not ignore the way classism and racism and homophobia play into and amplify misogyny. It both focuses intimately on Frankie’s day-to-day and connects that day-to-day with a larger, even supernatural struggle. It’s a good book! It’s fresh, it’s unusual, it has things to say.

And yet. I just don’t know what it is that keeps me from loving it. There’s some sort of spark missing. Maybe it wasn’t quite weird enough, didn’t commit quite as fully to its own strangeness as Bone Gap did. Maybe the “romance,” such as it was, wasn’t developed enough. While I was reading, I didn’t really mind - this book is not a love story, it’s about Frankie and her journey - but looking back, it does feel like this short-lived relationship existed solely for Frankie’s character development. It’s unclear why, exactly, they feel so strongly about each other. Hormones? I guess that’s what I chalked it up to as I read. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just never going to fall in love with a World War II story no matter how many cool ghosts are in it.

Maybe I should just delete this whole godforsaken review save for the first sentence.

This was a good book.