Bone Dance by Emma Bull

~ The Quick Take ~

Bone Dance is a psychological thriller, a low-tech cyberpunk noir, a novel of spiritual and self-discovery, and a classic “oh shit, we gotta stop the baddie” book. This results in issues of pacing and development that made finishing the book a slog despite there being moments of beauty and depth.

~ The Review ~

As you can tell from the quick take, Bone Dance suffers from an identity crisis.

Part of this identity crisis makes it impossible to talk about Bone Dance without spoilers. So while I’m not going to tell you how it all ends, be forewarned that I don’t think I can write a more traditional review without giving away something that’ll detract from the reading experience.

To make both writing and reading this review easier, I’m going to start with a big one.

Sparrow, the main character, is neither male nor female. On account of unusual anatomy, they describe themselves as gender neuter. While Sparrow doesn’t seem to give a fuck themself about their anatomy or gender identity, they are terrified of people learning this lest it betray their unusual origin story. Thus, they have no close friends.

Lots of folks reference this with awe. I found it lacking depth and realism.

First off, Sparrow’s anatomy and gender identity don’t really matter. Their purpose in the book is to drive a wedge between Sparrow and the world, but other things could have easily filled this role: an identifying tattoo, for example. And as proof that Sparrow’s gender identity isn’t anchored enough in the writing, it wouldn’t even be particularly difficult to re-write the novel to remove Sparrow being gender neuter.

Secondly, wouldn’t it make more sense for Sparrow to embrace one gender, rather than exist in an androgynous state where everyone’s second-guessing and, thus, discussing their gender identity?

If I had reason to believe that Sparrow struggles between being themself and blending in—boom, no questions asked. But Sparrow specifically doesn’t want to stand out. That’s literally their primary concern in life—so why buck the grain and purposefully portray themself as androgynous when they could feign a gender and fly under the radar.

I don’t get it.

But there are lots of things I don’t get. Most of the book, if I’m being honest. The depth of voodoo lore woven through everything is so strong I felt like I needed a companion book that explained the pieces I was missing. A low-tech cyberpunk world surrounds Sparrow, but on account of way too much ground to cover, it felt hollow and incongruous. I still don’t really get the ending—every review under the sun references it being a deus-ex-machina sort of thing, and it really is, but I don’t even get what the deus-ex-machina did, why it did it, or the significance of the outcome.

Like, okay, the villain is an awful guy, but the post-apocalyptic city of Minneapolis seemed like it was doing damn well despite existing on the bad side of the apocalypse. I didn’t see a single example of personal strife. And yet in the end, fixing the city from the meddling of the mayor seems to be the crux of the novel.

(Aside: this is part of my confusion over world building)

How is that the climax of a book that started with Sparrow going “why am I blacking out for no reason and waking up missing days of my life” when the mayor has absolutely nothing to do with that opening premise?

I could forgive all of this, every last one of these sins, if something compelling strung them all together. It doesn’t. Between the beginning and the end, we get to watch Sparrow settle into multiple perfectly accepting and respectful communities, run away from multiple bad guys who end up being good guys who then join Sparrow in running away from new bad guys who end up being good guys. Characters appear or are invented at random and convenient intervals, then are sidelined or killed the second their presence is a problem. I swear to cod one character was invented just to introduce a side-quest about getting school books to a kid so some postcards would land in Sparrow’s hands in time for a small plot point a few pages later.

There has to have been a better way to do that.

Obviously, it couldn’t be all bad or I wouldn’t have finished Bone Dance. I enjoyed Sparrow not being your traditional protagonist in terms of temperament or likability. Those early chapters that leaned towards psychological thriller enticed me, and I desperately wanted to learn more about why they were happening. A secondary character—Frances—was a delight, and not just because she was the only secondary character with any sort of depth. And while it seems a little funny now, I do appreciate Sparrow’s genuine love of 1990s technology. There’s nothing like hearing tell of a 27-inch monitor with awe.

Me, but not for normal book reasons

My first draft of this review was over 2,000 words long. I have feelings about Bone Dance. I have to admit, though that I have those feelings because I want to like it. Terrible books without merit I trash quickly and diss easily. Books that finish almost despite myself, and then labor over a negative review, I do so because there was something there I really, really like. It’s unfair of me to say, but I almost feel betrayed.

There is so much potential in Bone Dance, and Emma Bull is a fabulous writer. This might be a weird analogy, but reading it felt like simultaneously eating a pale, cafeteria version of something utterly delicious like pad Thai while smelling pad Thai from my favorite restaurant. Just infuriating and dissatisfying and a reminder of what I’m missing out on.

Current public rating on Goodreads: 3.85/5 | 1870 Ratings

Cover art by Jean Targete (who’s a dude):