Name: Mel Smith 's review of Near the Bone by Christina Henry
Item: Near the Bone
Rating: 4
Author: Mel Smith

Christina Henry

Near the Bone

Mel Smith 

"A woman trapped on a mountain attempts to survive more than one kind of monster, in a dread-inducing horror novel from the national bestselling author Christina Henry. Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they're not alone after all. There's something in the woods that wasn't there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. William won't want them there, and terrible things happen when William is angry. But the creature in the woods is angry, too..."--

Concept of the story was good but the kidnapping and control of a young girl is really sad and dark. I wish the story would dive more into William’s backstory and why he wanted to kidnap a young girl as well as what the creature really is. 

Alicia Evans

A chilling new novel from the author of Alice and Lost Boy Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realises that they're not alone after all. There's something in the woods that wasn't there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

Not gonna lie, this was nothing at all what I expected. The synopsis is honestly super misleading which is why I’m only giving it 4 but…

This literally kept me on the edge of my seat!! I read almost the entire book in one day it made me so nervous I just had to know what would happen!!! The beginning of the book was so disorientating and learning what was happening and what happened to the mc at the same time as she remembered it all made the entire story much more eerie and unsettling! This really is a great read if you want something quick and fast paced with honestly quite graphic descriptions!! This book made me so so angry and just ugh it was so good!!

Warning though as the synopsis didn’t do it justice, there’s mentions of kidnapping, trauma and abuse. (I don’t usually add warnings to my reviews but I didn’t expect anything I got reading this book as it really wasn’t described even remotely correctly, I was expecting a spooky fantasy but it was so real and the fantasy elements were very minimal and it was more a story about escaping a horrible situation!)

A woman trapped on a mountain attempts to survive more than one kind of monster, in a dread-inducing horror novel from the national bestselling author Christina Henry. Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they’re not alone after all. There’s something in the woods that wasn’t there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws. When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.

Very good pacing and tightly compacted story. The side characters are not as compelling as the main character who is definitely the most interesting part of the story. This is my first book from the author and I really enjoyed it.

It was a fairly quick read as well! I think it only took me about three hours or so. I was hooked the whole time and the time just kind of flew by. Did a great job of being compelling and staying that way. If you're looking for something to get out of a reading slump, I would recommend this !

Very good pacing and tightly compacted story. The side characters are not as compelling as the main character who is definitely the most interesting part of the story. This is my first book from the author and I really enjoyed it.

It was a fairly quick read as well! I think it only took me about three hours or so. I was hooked the whole time and the time just kind of flew by. Did a great job of being compelling and staying that way. If you're looking for something to get out of a reading slump, I would recommend this !

sophia n

this was so much more intense than i expected it to be. it hit the ground running page one, pulling zero punches with throwing you into the physical and emotional abuse that the main character is and has been experiencing, all surrounded by this very isolating physical location, adding to the horror of the actual abuse.

i expected this story to be slow and quiet but full of tension, i guess based off the title and summary it just was giving me those vibes, but the story was actually non-stop speed, hit after hit, which i did not expect, and genuinely could not put down. the balance and juxtaposition between the journey the main character goes on, getting out of the ironclad grip of her kidnapper and abuser, and the real escape from whatever else it is that suddenly appeared on the mountain and is hunting them, was in my opinion, masterful. survival is a constant question, but from what? i ate up this narrative line.

i think one thing i would've liked more is honestly a completely personal taste thing. not necessarily more explanation about the thing in the woods, but ... i guess i wanted something a little weirder done with it. i kept expecting it to lean a little further into the supernatural (like, why does mattie keep *sensing* them) and i think there could have been a really cool weirdness there that would've made this an all-time favorite read for me. instead that part just fell a little flat. it felt like a missed opportunity on the commentary of abuse and fear and trauma that i kept feeling it skate against but never lean into. then again, maybe it was trying to be subtle on that point. i just can't tell if it was or not.

other than that though, really truly enjoyed this, probably one of my favorite thrillers so far this year. definitely a surprising read as this book randomly just popped up on my radar like a week ago and happened to be available from my library in between some of my other holds. super glad i picked it up, and i'm sure i'll be thinking about it for a long while.

tw: physical abuse, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, kidnapping, gore, mentions of miscarriage, mentions of rape, confinement, animal death

Celeste Richardson

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Near the Bone is the story of Mattie, a young woman living alone on a mountain with her abusive, much older husband. Something isn’t right on the mountain. Something besides the abuse Mattie can never seem to escape. A new creature has made the mountain its home. It’s huge, a master at staying hidden, and far too intelligent to be a bear or any other average predator. Can Mattie find a way to escape them mountain, and leave both of her monsters behind?

I flew through Near the Bone in less than 24 hours. I’ve never read anything by Christina Henry, but I found her prose to be compulsively readable. There’s something about her writing style that really drew me in. It’s like the words just disappeared from the page, leaving a movie of sorts in their place. And while this is a novel about a preternatural creature, and while there are a handful of other characters in the narrative, this is largely a character study of Mattie. I loved watching her reclaim her courage and her voice over the course of the novel, as well as her mission to uncover her own past. She was without a doubt the star of the show.

While the story was incredibly compelling, there was a lack of depth outside of Mattie’s internal story that left me feeling a bit dissatisfied. If it were a movie, Near the Bone would have been a made-for-tv, SyFy cut, not a big-budget HBO or theatrical release. This could totally be an issue on my end, though, instead of with the book itself. I tend to find a lot of horror novels a bit shallow, and I think this is because my first loves of the genre were Dean Koontz and Stephen King. As both of these authors tend to pen chonkers, I think it’s an unfair comparison to make with shorter novels, but it’s one that I can’t seem to help making. However, Near the Bone fared better than most in my mind due to the depth of Mattie’s story. I just wish a bit more of that wonderful depth had been applied to the creature itself, and to the mountain survival scenario. 

If you’re in the market for a well-paced survival horror with a compelling protagonist and a slim page count, Near the Bone should definitely be at the top of your list.

You can find  this review and more at Novel Notions.

Dewi | Chthonic Child

Holy shit this book. It's so insane. I legit, was kept on my toes the whole time. The start was a little slow-ish, and right around when I started to feel like stuff was going to get dull shit hit the fan. It was so intense. I feel for Mattie and I'm so proud of her🧡
This book covers some pretty intense topics from kidnapping, rape, heavy abuse and gore and should be read with caution. 

Erin Russell

3 1/4 stars. First half was giving me anxiety in its description of abuse. The second half became more traditional survival horror that was more palatable to me personally. I’ll be reading more of Christina Henry’s other books, I like dark fantasy retellings.

Marisa S. Pan 

The story on itself was good but when it's promised a monster hunting you I need too see more of that. 

In a way I think this book would be amazing or without the monster plot and committee itself to the main story that was happening or bring more of the monster like... The monster being the metaphor of the abuser.

Still enjoyable... The marketing was kinda just not it 

Allison

Great thriller for winter time! Had no idea it was going to be about abduction, I definitely went into this blind. The narration was on point, loved how the MC shifted perspectives from Mattie to Samantha when she was thinking. Had some nice plot twists in there too. 

Whitney Leno

I loved this book. I watch a lot of booktube and I have only seen one person talk about it. That could be because it's a fairly new release. I would highly recommend this. I love that there was a supernatural monster and then the monster that's in your home. Major trigger warning for domestic violence (which happens with in the first 10 pages) and grooming of a child.

Samantha King

I have to say that there is a trigger warning for abuse.
This book was just so good, it was intense and bone chilling at times. It kept me on the edge of my seat and at times I literally was holding my breath with the character. 
There are some gorey bits in it but not as much as I thought there would be.
This author writes bone chilling, scary moments really well.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up feeling like I was also being stalked by the creature in the woods.
The isolation part made it even more creepier 
Such a good intense read although some scene were hard to read but I felt the author portrayed it well and mannaged to make it terrifying at the same time.

B. K.

4.5 stars, rounded up because I was emotionally invested in Mattie's escape right from the beginning, and that level of engagement is rare for me with horror/thrillers. (view spoiler)[The creature situation isn't fully explained - why the separation of its victims into their component parts? I usually prefer plot elements to be neatly wrapped up, but this book is more about Mattie than monsters, so I didn't mind too much. (hide spoiler)]

I really enjoy Christina Henry's writing style. So far the only other title I've read by her is The Girl in Red, which I also gave 4.5 stars, but I hope to get to her backlist eventually.

Heather Harrington

Mattie lives in a remote cabin in the woods with her husband, William. Mattie doesn't remember how they came to be on this mountain, or even much about her own life before William. All she does know for sure is that she must never make William angry. Mattie hasn't seen another person besides her husband for years, but when she comes across the mutilated body of a fox, she quickly realizes they aren't alone-- something with big claws is prowling through the woods. When three cryptid-obsessed strangers appear, Mattie knows their presence will anger William and bad things happen when William gets in a mood. Mattie desperately tries to get the strangers to flee, and in her haste to get them as far from William and the monster as possible, long-buried memories start to come to the surface and it'll take a strength Mattie didn't know she possessed to survive and uncover the truth about who she is.

If you were to take a psychological thriller mix in a suspenseful survivalist plot and add a dash of slasher horror, you would get Near the Bone. You can tell straight away that there's something wrong with Mattie's circumstances being that she's left so isolatedly sheltered, you can't fully put your finger on it, but it's clear it has something to do with her husband. I liked how Mattie's memories were triggered by these strangers she meets in the woods who vaguely recognized her, and you slowly got to piece together what happened to her which was so sad even if it was slightly predictable. Aside from how that, I also found the plot to be a little repetitive at times and would've loved to have gotten more of the monster aspect. There's this big terrible creature picking them off one by one, yet we don't learn much about it at all. You don't even get a clear picture at the end of what it exactly was either, so that left me a bit underwhelmed. There were times where Henry did a nice job of keeping you on edge, especially in the smaller, quieter moments, and her writing was very atmospheric, but I just wished for a little more.

Elodia

** spoiler alert **
           TW: physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.

Near the Bone had me hooked from the first page; it was mysterious and horrifying. Mattie is in captivity and has been for a very long time, but now she has the chance to escape and is trying to outrun two monsters, her captor and the creature in the woods. It was hard to read at times with the abuse she goes through. 

The characters were well written, especially Mattie. She becomes stronger throughout the book, and you can really see the progression chapter to chapter.

 I wanted to learn more about the creature which only made a few appearances, and sometimes felt as if there was actually nothing there and I’d forget we were supposed to be afraid of it. By the end, we never get an actual description of the creature, and I know it was done on purpose but it took away from my enjoyment of the book; if there’s going to be a monster in the book, I want to be horrified by it. The conclusion was very open-ended and it felt anticlimactic. I would have liked an epilogue a bit into the future to see how Mattie was adapting to post-captivity life.

*Thank you to NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book.

Mel Smith &
Near the Bone by Christina Henry

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