Bone Gap is a unique and extraordinarily well-written standalone novel, written by Laura Ruby. It features a set of very different and interesting characters, in the strange small town of Bone Gap, where magical holes in the universe appear to be… rather normal.

The story follows the disappearance of Roza, a beautiful girl, beloved by the town for her bounce and golden heart. Finn, a dreamy young boy that never fit in, was the only witness to Roza’s mysterious disappearance, but try as he may, no one seemed to believe him. And after a few months, the town had given up its search. But not Finn, for how can he rest when he is the only one who knows what happened? As Finn learns what it takes to go the distance and what it means to care so greatly for other people around him, other, much darker and far more powerful forces are at work.

“But wasn’t that love? Seeing what no one else could?”

The plot is greatly affected by the setting, as it is set in a town, in the middle of nowhere. The author has somehow perfectly captured the charm of a small town life, complete with seemingly endless rows of corn, long lonely roads, and the signature gossip, focusing solely on how people seem to look and talk about everything, but somehow, never quite seeing the true meaning and worth on the inside, whether it be an event or a person. With this in mind, the way things happen revolve around these small-town gossips, therefore also affecting character development.

Told from various perspectives, the plot and characters and setting and just overall concept is uniquely strange, eye-opening and interestingly reflects the way individuals and societies today react to big events and anything remotely different.

Bone Gap is an idiosyncratic ride through the eyes of a boy living life in a small town and figuring out what everyone tries to figure out: is what I’m seeing what is real?