Bones and All
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In honor of the 10 year anniversary of this book blog, I’ve asked a few VIP book lovers to write guest reviews. This review is by a couple (we stan)— Paul and Bethany Tobin. I’ve posted three guest reviews , two of which are books involving cannibalism, so apparently my friends are freaks! Here’s there review of Bones and All:
In April of 2024, I listened to Sarah Marshall's review of the movie Bones and All on her amazing podcast You Are Good under the impression that my wife had read the book the film was based on and we could chat about it. Excited to talk about the story, I asked her a lot of questions, and she kept giving me non-committal, vague responses. Finally, when I asked her what she thought of the fan theory that the character Sully was actually a manifestation of the main character's desires and not a real person, she said, "Sully? The HERO that landed the airplane on the Hudson River? Who doesn't think he's real? What?" It turned out she had not read this book, and was just politely letting me ramble about what she assumed must have been a dream I'd had. She then read the book.
Here is her review:
Paul: Did you enjoy Bones and All? How did it make you feel?
Bethany: I expected it would be a chore to finish, but I actually read it quickly. Dare I say it was a page turner? It made me feel concerned I was so invested.
Paul: I hear in the movie Lee is played by Timothee Chalamet; what do you think of that casting? If you could cast the roles of the story with anyone you wanted, who would you cast?
Bethany: Timmy's casting in the film was one of the reasons I gave the book a shot - Timmy doesn't miss. I have not seen the movie, but the dream cast would be Timothee Chalamet as all parts. If he couldn't commit due to time constraints, I'd go with Sadie Sink as Maren, Nicolas Cage as Sully. If we have a time machine, Cillian Murphy of the early 2000's would be my second choice for Lee.
Paul: From my understanding, the plot focuses on a teen girl who finds herself possessed by an unstoppable desire to eat human flesh. Sort of a coming of age for a teen cannibal-type story. Am I getting that right? Does it have more of a cannibal vibe or a vampire vibe?
Bethany: Turns out teenage years are just as hard for cannibals as the rest of us. We meet our main "eater" (as they refer to themselves) as she is navigating the world, a young, solo woman unable to control her urge to, um, eat people. The type of person the eater desires to devour is unique to each character we meet, our main character, Maren, can't resist boys that show her affection. As you can imagine, this complicates relationships. Vibe-wise it's neither really; they just can't stop bumping into their exact type of yummy people.
Paul: I've heard arguments that the story is an allegory for either addiction or queerness in 1980's America. A subset of undesirables, drawn towards an anti-social behavior, trying to make it in a world that is afraid of them and would rather they not exist. What do you think of that?
Bethany: Honestly, I don't know. I'm not convinced the author thought about it that hard.
Paul: With all the people eating, is the book gross?
Bethany: If you've ever seen the TV Show Futurama, there is a character called Nibbler who can eat things many times his size in one, clean bite. There's not much detail on that, so that's how I imagined it.
Paul: Would you consider it a sexy book?
Bethany: Absolutely not.
Paul: Would you recommend this book? How many fire emojis would you give the book, overall?
Bethany: I would recommend this book, mainly so I have someone to talk to about it. I give it two fire emojis. I'm still working up the courage to watch the movie which I assume is a better adaptation of the story, but I'm pretty sure they're not going to eat people like Nibbler does in the movie.
