If yearbook superlatives were outdated Vine references, Wake the Bones would have earned the honorable title, “Country boy, I love you… eugh.” What reads at first like a horror novel, featuring an off-the-wall taxidermist protagonist named Laurel, instead veers off course to follow two parallel romances in a small town-Southern setting.

After dropping out of college and retreating back to her small Southern hometown, Laurel is fighting what feels like the inevitable fate of settling down to marry her childhood friend (read: rival). Isaac wants nothing more than to get away from this town and his father’s abuse to pursue a life removed from the stifling prejudices of the rural South. These two main conflicts dominate the speculative elements including a monster made of bones that may or may not have killed Laurel’s mother, a murder that was written off as a suicide. It’s a bit of a disjointed setup, with just enough horror to not read like an outright literary fiction.

The whole concept of impoverished Southern white people growing old in the same tiny community they were born in is one I think has already been well-explored in fiction. And while I’m not saying that’s a story that doesn’t need to be told again, even the speculative element of the narrative with the looming threat of a “bone monster” chasing down Laurel wasn’t enough to distinguish it in my memory. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of the Bone Gap. It’s a very similar small town setting featuring an outcast protagonist that goes head to head with a villain that may very well just be a metaphor. But where The Bone Gap is a book that has stuck with me, I can feel that Wake the Bones is going to fade away into the next cycle of stories that tread similar ground.

Where this book really leaves any lasting impression is with its prose, which is a great thing to say about a debut author. So even while I wasn’t invested in the plotting and execution here, I will be interested to see what Elizabeth Kilcoyne releases next. She has a control with language that makes even some of the more gruesome descriptions here oddly lyrical, which is exactly my flavor of prose.

In the end, Wake the Bones is gloomy, and slow, and a little bit existential. I absolutely think there’s a reader that's going to connect with this type of story. Unfortunately, that reader wasn’t me. So while I respect the atmosphere the author was able to establish, I didn't care enough about any of the characters enough that I think their individual arcs will linger with me.

Thank you to the publisher Wednesday Books for providing an ARC via NetGalley for an honest review.

Lovely narrator. Enjoyed the voice and speed. I however can not continue with this book it’s content is so slow. I made it 20%in and I still don’t get what is happening. It is very YA but same time classified as Horror. Just not for me.

This was such a spooky, fun story! I loved the atmosphere and the setting. It had everything a YA horror reader could want! I especially enjoyed the narrator. It was really well done!

A creepy, sticky and magical book that reads like the quintessential summer read. WAKE THE BONES has a special quality about it. I loved the setting of this book. I loved the Southern Gothic, midsummer feel of Dry Valley and it's very creepy woods. Everything about Kilcoyne's writing just oozes creepy: the monsters, the ghosts, the forest, the bones, everything. It's wonderfully atmospheric and eerie. Things definitely get weird at times, but I just couldn't look away the deeper and deeper I got into this story. It took me a while to warm up to our MC, Laurel, but as family secrets come to light and Laurel learns about the demon haunting her woods and her place in that story I really came around to her. I love the comradery between Laurel and her friends and this concept of them being a found family for each other. Each character was unique and compelling. The narrator for the audiobook did a great job achieving what Kilcoyne was trying to do with this story and capturing the feel of this book. WAKE THE BONES is a genre-bending, horrific and creepy gem of a book about sacrifice, ghosts of the past made present, and consequences that I really did enjoy.

Thank you to the publisher for giving me this ARC in return for an honest review

Laurel grew up on a rural farm with the 4 boys that make her life. Having dropped out of college, she helps her uncle harvest tobacco and works as a taxidermist on the side. She has hidden powers that allows her glimpse how the bones she uses dies. Until one day, the bones rise into a creature she’s never seen and tries to kill her. Her powers are more than they seem, but will it be enough to kill the devil and ghosts haunting her farm and trying to harm her?

I liked this book! It’s been a while since I have read a good horror book, and it had all favorite elements, witches, ghosts, eerie atmosphere. I loved the diversity and LGBTQ representation, and in a way that is so true to the south. It definitely was an eerie story, and I didn’t know which way it would go through most of the story. The ending was a little long and ranting for my taste, it could have ended sooner, but I enjoyed the author wrapped up the storylines we were following. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. 3/5 stars

I also really enjoyed the narrator for this audiobook! She was fantastic and really lent to the atmosphere of the story!

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for sending me an early copy of this audiobook! All opinions are my own!

For starters, I'm never going into the woods again. I think the best part of this book is how deeply it draws you into the story and the imagery. There is no relenting to the creepiness, that hair standing up kind of feeling that everything in this book stirs within you. It made me not want to listen at night because I knew it was just going to envelop me and be all that I could think about.

I really liked the representation that this book provided. As someone who has grown up in a rural area, I thought the themes of this book were really well done. From the characters' needs to hide their differences to the way they simply felt they couldn't escape their hometown. I enjoyed watching them grow and learn, and they were relatable enough that everything felt real and believable.

I do wish there had been more plot twists, but I think that the ending was a slight surprise to me and I loved the way it was left up to the characters to fight for the lives they would want. It was a great coming of age story that left me inspired and wanting to make my own life into whatever the heck I dream of.

If you're a horror fan, definitely check this book out! (maybe in the light of day though)

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio/Wednesday Books for providing me with this ARC.

“The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.”

This story was haunting, creepy, and beautifully written. Would recommend this to any horror fans. Definitely look up trigger warnings. I think a lot of the themes are a bit more mature than YA, while the characters definitely felt YA. Kinda wish it leaned more one way or the other, but the story itself I found gripping.

Laurel Early wants nothing more than to return home after dropping out of college, she wants to pick tobacco at the family farm and continue her taxidermy (creepy!) She’s still struggling after her mother’s suicide and the small, dying town she’s returned to offers little in the way of positive distraction. Everything changes when Laurel learns that the Early women are witches and that no one less than the devil himself is her adversary, as he was her mother’s adversary many years before. Does Laurel have the power to succeed where her mother failed and vanquish the prince of darkness? Billed as a YA novel, this beautifully written horror story will easily appeal to adults as well.

I was lucky enough to read a physical version of this and it became a fast favorite. The audio book enhances the depth of story with it's thoughtful inflection and southern accents making an already incredible book come alive.
Wake the Bones is delightfully dark and oozing with atmosphere. It's prose are haunting, heartbreaking, and intensely human.
You'll follow Laurel Early as she withdraws from college and returns home to the family farm, a farm that's haunted by a tragic past and an uncertain future. You'll meet a handful of Laurels childhood friends and come to intimately understand how living in a small southern town has shaped each of them.
The author masterfully builds a looming feeling of dread that gets heavier and heavier as you turn each page. I felt true otherworldly terror within these pages, terror that was greatly enhanced by the juxtaposition of so many familiar, human moments.
Wake the Bones isn't just one thing. It's part horror, part coming off age story, a look at loss, and a smart and sobering peek into the live of folks living in the"fly over" states. I think this story is one that will connect with many.
I'm in awe that this is a debut novel! I'll most certainly be picking up whatever this author offers up next!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.