"...[Grandmother] says there's no point in over-complicating matters, math is boring, and the job of all stories is, eventually to come to an end."

The Bone Fire is a translated work about a girl, Emma, who goes to live with a grandmother she didn't know existed after the death of her parents. The story takes place in an unnamed European village after the fall of Communism and in the aftermath of widespread anti-Semitism. This creates an interesting backdrop for Emma's transition into her teenage years as she mourns her old life and learns about her grandparents.

The Bone Fire is filled with moments of magic realism and the small bite-sized stories that compromise the novel are both fun and poignant. This reminded me in some ways of another novel I love--My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. Overall I liked this one very much and would love to read more of Emma's story. I also hope that one day I can be as amazing as Emma's grandmother.

This is one of those books that you will love or not love so much. I personally loved it, and really want to read more from György Dragomán!

Set in an unnamed, post-revolution Eastern European country, where a terrible, bloody, dictatorship has just been toppled, Emma finds herself recently orphaned and alone. When a grandmother that she never knew she had comes to pick her up from the institution she is living in she finds herself immersed in a world that she has to learn to navigate by herself.

The language in this novel is very unique, and I can understand why it would put some people off at first. It is deceptively simple, with little punctuation and a continuous present tense. But once you get used to it it becomes lyrical, beautiful even, and gives you a very specific view into Emma’s world from her own eyes.

Having personally witnessed Poland before and after the end of the Communist dictatorship I found myself thinking back to those times while reading this novel, wondering what was real and what wasn’t.

There is a lot of magical realism in this novel, and a lot of darkness, and metaphors for pain and terror. I personally couldn’t put it down.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

'The Bone Fire' by György Dragomán is a tale set in an unnamed Eastern European city, in a country where their oppressive regime has recently been toppled. After the loss of her parents to a car accident, a young girl named Emma ends up living in an orphanage until she's adopted by a grandmother she doesn't know.

Bitterly divided by the revolution, Emma begins to learn the ways of her new grandmother who can read fortunes, heal or inflict pain, and more. Though she uses magic in her day-to-day life and the ghost of her dead husband still resides at home, these aren't the main reasons she's treated with suspicion and contempt by the townspeople. They believe her and her husband to be traitorous informers.

This story is a mixture of magical realism and sort of a modern Jacobin novel. While the story is wrapped in what feels like an old fairy tale, it strives to discuss some very heavy topics. Though they can easily be applied to certain things going on right now, the author has given them some distance by writing it as if it's taking place 40 years ago or so.

Though there isn't a lot of plot here, I don't feel like that's the point. Instead, Dragomán allows us to experience the lives of these characters unfettered by jumping them through hoops to get to a specific point, which is not to say their lives are uneventful. In fact, there are some extremely memorable moments throughout the book that seem to help define the world they live in while shaping their world view.

Centered in and around the fall of the Communist rule of Transylvania, the author spends most of his time focusing on the changes brought about by the revolution and the fall itself, without ever calling direct attention to the area.

If there was ever a book that was a structural parallel to Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, this is it. Painted in a stiff prose that feels both representative of the cooler Eastern European language style and the rather harsh setting the characters live within, the book moves slowly through the day-to-day. There's no glossing over the more mundane details to hurry to a plot point or steer the narrative. Those details seem to actually be the narrative.

While that style is not for me, it's hard not to admire the patience and artistry within these pages.

On a side note, some of the witchy scenes are really fun and carry a sense of dark connotation that I genuinely enjoyed. My favorite was actually early in the novel with some musicians, while Emma and her grandmother were on the train bound for home.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Mariner Books and the author for the advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

FIRST IMPRESSION:

What initially drew me to The Bone Fire was the beautiful cover: it gave off strong fantasy vibes that I couldn't resist. Then I was intrigued by the foreign setting. It was an unfamiliar culture and folklore. So, even though I hardly read translations, I decided I'll give this a go.

THE STORY:

The story follows thirteen-year-old Emma, who was recently orphaned and is taken in by her Grandmother. Emma instantly realises that Grandmother is not an ordinary woman. She's proved right when mysterious events start to happen around her new household. Soon enough, Emma starts to bond with her Grandmother, learning about her family's past and a new lifestyle as she navigates a new school, new friends, and the fall of communism.

THE GOOD STUFF:

- The writing is beautiful. There is something magical itself about the author's writing or maybe it's the translation.
- I love the story's setting. The story is set in an unidentified East European nation that's facing a political revolution. I didn't know much about the political history so I brushed up on that quite a bit. Also, the aesthetic of the setting is just magical!
- Following the story through Emma's POV was fun because we are figuring out things with Emma. It helped me relate more with the MC.
- Out of all the various characters, Grandmother is my favourite. She is the calm, level-headed personality that just makes everyone feel safe and loved.
- I loved reading about Emma's school experience, the good and the bad.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD STUFF:

- I am a tad confused by the style of writing. Rather than typical conversations between characters, the story is told solely through Emma's POV. But it gets confusing because of the punctuation: there are no quotation marks.
- It gets very obvious that it's a guy writing a thirteen-year-old girl's perspective, especially when Emma gets body-conscious. It is very cringey.
- Sometimes the language can get a bit too flowery. I appreciate some good imagery and world-building, but some bits were just altogether unnecessary for me.

FINAL VERDICT:

The Bone Fire by György Dragomán is a chilling Gothic tale of a thirteen-year-old Emma navigating a world that is going through a revolution. It is magical, heartbreaking and eye-opening. But I'm left wondering whether this translation lives up to the original work.

This book is a wonderful, creepy winter delight. It combines elements of dark academia with european folktales and is the perfect read for these cold winter days. I can't wait for it to come out so I can share in its' glory with all of my friends. Finally a great fantasy for 2021!.

regretfully, i couldn’t find a way to invest myself in this book. the writing shows promise but is ultimately not for me. thank you to netgalley for this ARC regardless! i hope readers enjoy themselves when they open this book up even if i wasn’t the right reader for it :)

<I>Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy in return for an honest review.</I>

I've seen a lot of really good reviews for this book, and while I'm glad so many people have enjoyed it, I honestly don't understand why. For me, the writing style was such a massive impediment to the overall story that I could barely get through it.

<I>The dormitory is empty. The others are in class — that’s where I was too before I was called to the headmistress’s office. I go over to my bed, lean down, and pull out the round suitcase underneath. It’s burgundy, and the zipper doesn’t work properly; it broke almost as soon as we bought it. Mother was very angry because we couldn’t get it fixed, and we couldn’t return it either. I put the suitcase on the bed.
I go over to my cupboard and open it. My clothes are there on hangers: my worn-out, quilted red winter coat, my three blouses, my two skirts, my one pair of jeans, which now extend only to the middle of my shins. I take out the clothes and place them on my bed.
I go back to the cupboard. On the middle shelves there are three pairs of underwear, socks, stockings; on the upper shelf are my gym clothes and my gym bag, as well as Mother’s old competition tracksuit; on the lower shelf are my two Norwegian-patterned knit sweaters.
I take everything over to the bed.
I take my shoes out of the cupboard; apart from my Mary Janes, which I’m wearing, I have one pair of black patent-leather shoes, and one pair of white tennis shoes with green rubber soles.
Now only my old school uniform and my Pioneer uniform are left in the cupboard. Ever since New Year’s we have not been permitted to wear them; since then, we don’t need uniforms, and the Communist Party and its youth branch, the Young Pioneers, no longer exist. But I still take these items out of the cupboard. The woven yellow insignia is falling off the button of my Pioneer shirt; the threads of the tassels are tangled together.
The cupboard is almost empty now; there is just one more thing left in it. It is a photograph pasted on the inside of the cupboard door. It’s a color photograph, but the hues are fairly pale, Father said because he wasn’t able to develop the film properly. The picture shows the three of us, Mother, Father, and me. It was taken up in the mountains by the shore of a lake; it’s the only picture of all three of us together. Father took it with a self-timer. We were all laughing at him because after Father placed the camera on the stump of a tree and pulled the timing mechanism, he ran over to us so quickly that he wasn’t paying attention and he tripped over a tree branch but then just as quickly he jumped up and kept on running to make sure he would get into the picture on time, and he did. He even had enough time to put his arms around me and Mother too, and there he stood — and it was only then that we noticed that a pine branch had gotten stuck in his sweater, and that made us laugh even more.
I look at the picture, at Mother’s loosened hair; I place my index finger on it, and I caress her hair. I don’t feel anything, only the smoothness of the photograph’s surface. I dig my fingernails underneath the picture and carefully pry it away from the cupboard door. It comes off nicely, not tearing anywhere, only a tiny piece of chipboard from the cupboard door sticks to a corner in the back.
I walk over to the bed, and as I pick up my red, blue, and black Norwegian sweater, the plastic bag stuffed into one of the sleeves makes a crackling sound. I pull a small yellow bag from the sleeve. Mother’s French silk scarf is folded up nicely inside; tucked in one corner of the scarf are Mother’s and Father’s wedding rings. I haven’t touched these since the funeral, and even now I hold them only through the plastic bag, thinking about the jasmine scent of Mother’s perfume, thinking that it should still be there in her scarf. I slip the photograph between the layers of the silk scarf, and I pick up the bag, feeling the rigidity of the photograph between the layers of plastic and silk.
I am about to stuff the bag back into the sleeve of the sweater when suddenly I think of Grandmother’s fingers and how she fastened the watch onto my wrist. I place the bag on the bed, and I don’t stuff it back into the sweater. I open the suitcase. Father’s two old belts are rolled up together in it next to my old pencil case. I take out the pencil case, remove my old pencil sharpener from it — the blade is getting dull — and with my little finger, I unscrew the screw that holds it in place. I take out the blade, cut the inner lining at the bottom of the suitcase, and put the bag with the scarf and the wedding rings between the lining of the suitcase and its fake leather exterior, then smooth it out from the inside and the outside. The fake leather is nice and thick, and there’s no way to tell that there’s anything in the lining.
I take out Father’s two belts, hook the buckle of the black one into the last hole of the brown one, pull on the buckle, and push the end of the belt underneath the steel-riveted leather strap. Now it’s long enough to use as a strap around the suitcase.
After I pack my clothes and my shoes, I take my nightgown out from beneath my pillow and place it on the top. I close the suitcase, lift it up, shove the belt underneath the handle of the suitcase, tug on it strongly, then buckle it up.
I’m ready; I’ve packed my things.</I>

This is an incredibly long quote, and normally not something I would put in a review. I have left it here in its entity, however, because it so clearly shows the multitude of issues I had with the writing on every single page of this novel. Every single action the character is doing is described, drowning any significant action in unnecessary, boring detail. To make sure every single action is documented, many of the sentences are short which gives the writing an incredibly choppy feel. The excessive amount of detail combined with the present tense PLUS the fact that there is no dialogue (only the reporting of speech) made it almost impossible to actually focus on the story. I had to actively work on not zoning out while reading every minutiae of events that happened to the character. I'm surprised that the author didn't tell me every time the character breathed.

The word count could have been cut <I>in half</I> and this still would have been the same story. The minutiae of detail not only slowed the pace between any significant events in the story, but also made those important moments (when you could identify them) feel like just one more item on a list. The absence of any dialogue also made if difficult to feel like any of the characters were distinct since the only voice you hear the entire time is Emma's monotone.

If you can get past all of that, there is still the fact that the story doesn't even have a complete ending. It simply stops rather than finishes.

The combination of historical events, politics, and mythology is theory was a great idea, but the multitude of issues in the execution of these ideas creates a book that is hard to focus on for more than a few minutes at a time, let alone actually finish.

This is not a book a normally read but I did enjoy the book. I really liked the main character I liked how independent she is. I really liked the relationship between Emma and her grandmother. The way in which you were transported to the time and place really made it real.

This novel is set in an un-named Eastern European country that has endured repeated government changes and forms of repression that seem very much like Hungary, the author's home. The main character Emma's world turns upside down following her parents' death in a car accident, and a grandmother she never knew she had shows up at the orphanage to bring her from the city to the small village where her mother grew up. With politics and the history of politically sanctioned murders close to the surface of everyone's minds and actions, Emma is left to try to sort out her grandparents' place in the community and to understand the widespread animosity toward them. Her adjustment to her new life is complicated by her grandmother's secrecy and apparent magical powers. Dragoman's writing and the translation from Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet are rich in detail and description. Not only are the characters and their relationships complex and engaging, but the political background is brought to life in spite of the anonymity of the country.

While this story was very unique, I found the writing difficult to get past. It is a fairytale, but I felt disconnected from the MC and the magic was unfortunately lost on me. I am not sure if that might be due to the translation, as sometimes the nuances of a story are lost between, but I couldn’t really get into it. However, this might work for others and I encourage others to pick it up if they are interested!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I had high hopes for this book as it’s written by an acclaimed author. The plot, which includes a historical setting, subtle magic, and a mysterious grandmother, pulled me in and had me wanting to know more. However, the writing just wasn’t for me. I think some of the style comes it’s translation. That being said, it was a unique story that I will try to revisit in the future. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys slow paced magical realism that leaves you with some questions unanswered.

This book was tough for me. It is written in first person present tense. I do not like first person present tense. It's fine if the story is really good and sucks me in immediately, but if I'm still on the fence at the end of chapter one, it is tough for me to carry on. 

I really love the setting. Romania after the fall of communism, not a time and place I've read much about. I would definitely like to see more books from this time period. 

The story feels very disjointed. There are many things that are never explained or accounted for. I do like the magical elements, but they are very subtle. The book does not resolve itself well. I was left with more questions than answers. I do not have any evidence that this book is part of a series, so I think I will just never know. The writing style in this translation was beautiful. 

It is possible that I would have enjoyed this book more if the world were not in such a dark place right now. I will try to reread it in the summer and  possibly revise my review.

I was initially intrigued by the book’s description and the cover design!
But once starting, it felt like it was all a little too slow, dense, and heavy to actively stay engaged.
Some interesting concepts up front, but ultimately there wasn’t much to connect with.

I would highly recommend reading a sample of this book before purchasing if you can. It's super descriptive on one level, but not necessarily for things that drive the story forward. It also just has a super heavy feel to it. And for some, this can improve the further they read. However, for me, this book was a weirdly written book about a rebellious protagonist and her everyday life with her grandmother and was just a bit too boring to be enjoyable. I enjoyed the subtle magical elements (but I wanted more) and the main character wasn't as annoying as a lot of the teenage characters I've been reading lately.

Thank you to both Netgalley and Mariner Books for providing me with an eARC of this book, unfortunately it just didn't quite work for me.

I was really excited for this book because of my Hungarian roots, but I found it quite hard to go through it due to its topic being super heavy. It was rich in History indeed but I felt like it could have been stretched out more. The concept was interesting!

Advance Review Copy generously provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was intrigued by the historical premises and that it took place in Romania. I wanted to like this book but I just really didn't. I found it very hard to get into the book. I don't enjoy giving such a low rating to any book, but I have to be honest, this didn't work for me at all.
I really do not like the writing style (maybe it is the translation?) and I feel very disconnected from the main character. The pace was very slow. I didn't really care about the characters, to be honest. The most interesting character was the grandmother who is surrounded by mystery. The ending felt unfinished.
I would describe it as a weird story and not in a good way.

This took me a while to get through. It felt slow and the writing style made certain parts of the story feel out of place. It is described as a "suspenseful" story, however, I didn't feel any suspense or tension during multiple points of the book.

ARC REVIEW: The Bone Fire by Gyorgy Dragoman 🔥
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SUMMARY: Following the death of her parents in 1950s Hungary, a young girl is taken from an orphanage to live with a grandmother she’s never met.
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Beautiful. Haunting. A Studio Ghibli film in book form.
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On the surface, this is a coming of age story about an adolescent girl navigating life in her new village—a village that’s also trying to find its own way: post-Holocaust, post-Soviet-takeover and post-people’s revolution. But each vignette in her life is steeped in magical realism, making even the most mundane episodes feel like another step in her fairy-tale journey.
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A major theme in the book is loss. And while the characters had to work through their grief and anger, I loved what the book had to say about moving on: “It could have been otherwise, but now it’s like this, and now there’s nothing more to be done, because you still have to try to live.”
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I will say that its emphasis on language over straightforward plot development reminded me of last year’s Clap When You Land. Similarly, while the writing was beautiful, I did struggle to get through it. I wish there were end notes because there were several places where I wasn’t sure of the context or even what was going on. This may have been a translation issue.

This was an interesting read. A Gothic, magical, fairytale sort of story. I really enjoyed the story but the telling was a little hard to get into, perhaps it is a translation issue. As much as I wanted to love it I found myself checking for how much was left so that I could find out the ending. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the free copy to review.

There’s a lot I’m not sure about when it comes to The Bone Fire, by György Dragomán (translated by Paul Olchvary). I’m not entirely sure where or when it’s set. There are mentions of a recently assassinated dictator and a secret police force called the Securitate that had me thinking this story was set in Romania in the early 1990s, but I can’t confirm this. There are frequent mentions of folk magic, but some of the things the main character and her grandmother do can mostly be explained away by coincidence or luck. It even took me a while to figure out what the main character’s name even was (Emma). While this book might be short on the usual details, it is long on episodes in Emma’s strange life as an orphan and (possible) witch’s apprentice.

We first meet Emma on the day, at the orphanage, when she is surprised to learn that she has a living grandmother. Emma had believed that she had no family after her parents died and it takes Grandmother some work to convince Emma of their relationship. Strange things start to happen immediately after they leave the orphanage. Grandmother’s purse seems to be some kind of magical guard dog and promises are made with fresh blood. While the odd things keep happening, Emma also has to settle into a new life in the city, at a school where everyone believes that her recently deceased grandfather was an informer.

I think the events of The Bone Fire take place over about a year, from shortly after the old regime was overthrown, through a winter, and into what seems to be a new revolution against kleptocrats who took over from the old guard. The meandering plot bounces between Emma’s magical lessons with her grandmother, to teenage milestones like getting one’s period and buying a first bikini, to increasing violent events around the city. It’s a lot to absorb. To be honest, I’m surprised that this book clocks in at under 400 pages because it felt like a lot more.

Readers who are looking for a more traditional fantasy novel, where a chosen one defeats a big evil, should look elsewhere. The Bone Fires actually reminded me more of Lev Grossman’s Magicians Trilogy (although it doesn’t have anything like Fillory) because it’s the story of a girl with magical abilities (maybe) who has to get along in an ordinary world. It’s a deep character dive. It’s also a long look at survivors’ guilt, betrayal, secrets, and compromise. And, running through the whole thing, is the hope that potions and rituals can influence the mundane, making life just a little bit wilder.