Bonebag by E. M. Elliott

Thanks to @NetGalley for the advance copy of this book! 🦴

Forced to attend the whim of his so-called parents, a boy called Bonebag lives an isolated life in the forest, with few comforts but pages from a book, the faint memory of perfume, and a feeling that this isn’t the life he was supposed to live. But trapped inside a nightmare world where dark creatures prowl, how can he change his fate? ✨

Bonebag finds a way to leave the forest. He travels to a city, and makes friends with another lost boy like himself, one without parents. But escaping the forest left a mark, he’s been cursed and every day he loses more of his humanity. 👹To break it, he must find a way to return, and bring back the final ingredient of a potion - a flower that grows in the forest where he was kept for years. 🪻Joined alongside his new friends, he must discover the truth of how he arrived in the forest to begin with, and the question that has followed him all his life - who are his real parents? 🤔

What a wonderful book, full of incredible world-building. 🥰 The characters were all so unique and I loved the language and dialect used by the lost boys! This Middle Grade novel is being published on 26 May ‘26, and I wish it every success! 💖

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Thanks Net Galley for the ARC!

I loved this book with my whole heart ❤️ It was so fun to read and really captured why I fell in love with reading when I was just a a wee one.

This is such a great little adventure, about a boy trying to find his place in the world after suffering a horrific upbringing. It honestly reminded me of The Pagemaster where he goes through all the different genres, it started with horror, went a bit adventure/fantasy, then a little mystery, then back to horror and I loved it!

This definitely gave me Little Nightmares vibes, the horror part is so creepy, especially from the eyes of a child. And the rest was giving His Dark Materials in the way that it's like our world but slightly different and it had the same feeling of adventure and importance that HDM gave me.

If you have a kiddo who likes a bit of everything or likes horror without being scared silly by ghosts and stuff, this one is a must!! But also, if You're an adult and just want a really fun, short, well contained story for in-between your main books, go for it! It's so much fun!