Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

In 2020, V.E. Schwab introduced readers to Addie LaRue, a young woman who makes a Faustian bargain to avoid an unwanted marriage in early 18th-century France. In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Schwab follows Addie through the centuries as Addie, through her own cunning and strength of will, molds the bargain into mostly what she wanted and learns to live with the terms of the agreement into which she has entered.

Now, Schwab is back with the story of three women, Maria, Lottie, and Alice. While they are separated by centuries and dispositions, there is a shared experience between all of them: they are living a life that they didn't choose and for which they were not adequately prepared. They must learn the limits, both physical and cultural, that will define them. They will succumb to some, challenge others, and completely disregard even more. And they may learn that how they live, rather than how long, is the most important lesson of all.
In Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab tells another story of living the life of a near-immortal with a decidedly darker perspective. Unlike Addie LaRue, who willingly entered into a bargain to get what she wanted and then learned how to live within the restrictions she accepted, Maria, Lottie, and Alice find themselves in circumstances that they may not have actively sought and about which they know almost nothing when their journeys begin. They spend years learning the parameters and the costs of their existence for themselves and those around them.

Schwab also explores the struggles women have endured for literally centuries against the restrictions and expectations cultures have placed upon them (and how ridiculous those restrictions and expectations often are when truly questioned or challenged). It illustrates the ingenuity with which women have repeatedly had to rely to circumvent those restrictions and the costs they often pay when they are discovered. It also provides a glimpse into how freeing it must be when women consciously decide they are not going to play by those rules any longer.

As is true of all of her work, Schwab's characters are compelling. They are easily recognizable and are all souls that have all been damaged, in markedly different ways, by the world around them and those that are closest to them. While readers may not always agree with their decisions or pursuits, they will understand them.

Schwab also plays with a well-established literary trope, redefining or rejecting established "rules," while also adding new ones to tell the story she wishes to tell.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a fascinating, exhilarating, and terrifying novel. And it just may be the much darker, evil twin of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.