ARC Review: “These Bones” by Kayla Chenault

“These Bones” by Kayla Chenault

Publication Date: September 14, 2021

Genre: Fiction, Horror

Page Length: 144 pages (paperback review edition)

Synopsis:

In a neighborhood known as the Bramble Patch, the Lyons family endures despite poverty, racism, and the ghoulish appetites of an underworld kingpin called the Barghest.

As the years pass and the neighborhood falls into decay, along with the town that surrounds it, what’s left of the Bramble Patch will learn the saying is true: These bones are gonna rise again. (description from Goodreads)

Review:

This is a short but intense Gothic Horror style novel about families within the neighborhood called the Bramble Patch. The novel paints a harsh reality for the Lyons family and others as they are stuck in a place of systematic racism and inequalities. Most of all everyone lives in fear of the Barghest who deals in the underworld and has a ghoulish appetite, always feeding on his next victim. The novel follows life in the Bramble Patch and readers see the characters navigate through the neighborhood’s sharp decline.

Though this novel has a Gothic horror style to it there is still a lot of grotesque body horror and violence making it a very powerful novel. There’s a constant uneasy feeling throughout the multitude of narratives presented in the novel because readers are always aware of something lurking in the background. The characters themselves have this uneasy feeling too as they know there are larger forces of a power that they cannot fight against.

For me, I couldn’t enjoy the novel as much because it felt incredibly disjointed to me personally. It was hard to follow along with the timeline shifts and the different characters. I also became confused as if things were actually happening in the story or if it was more of magical realism elements. I think this was a case of it’s me, not the actual book. But These Bones does a great job of immersing the reader into the novel and delivers on the spine-tingling chills.

Final Verdict:

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from Lantern Fish Press in exchange for a fair and honest review.