Book Review | Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

Published by Tor Books on June 10, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Paranormal, Fiction / Historical, Fiction / LGBTQ
Pages: 535
Format: Hardcover

This is a story about hunger.
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.
1827. London.
A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.
2019. Boston.
College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life—how it ends, and how it starts.

ISBN: 9781250320520

Before I start picking apart this book, I do want to state that V.E. Schwab (or Victoria Schwab) has been an autobuy author for me. The past few books of hers I didn’t read the summary before pre-ordering them. I love her books and her writing, so saying I didn’t like a book of hers that I expected to love is truly heartbreaking. Sadly, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. After The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue came out, I was surprised by how much praise it was getting that for the longest time I lied about how much I loved it. I thought I missed something when I read it and basically convinced myself I must have loved it. It’s difficult to criticize books written by beloved authors (see my years of defending a certain wizard series written by a certain person before coming to my senses), especially when said author is getting praise for the book(s). Yet, over the years of not only growing up and going through grad school (twice), blind praise is just as detrimental. Plus, authors are humans too and sometimes (even amazing ones) they do write bad things. I know this is a long introduction, but I want to make it clear that nothing I write is an indictment against Schwab as a person nor anyone who did love Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

Without further ado…

So, for the most part I was actually really enjoying this book! Surprising, I know. But up to the 90% part I was vibing with the characters, the setting, and the story itself. I was slightly annoyed by Sabine’s characterization in the second half (when we get Lottie’s chunk of backstory told to the reader and Alice at the same time) of her being reduced to this cartoon villain. Yet, I had high hopes for how this was all going to come together and how Schwab was going to wrap up the story.

Then I finished it, and I was so flabbergasted by the ending that I thought this couldn’t possibly be correct. I kept flipping back and forth between the last page of the book and acknowledgements thinking I had to have missed a chapter (or a few).

Obviously, not every book needs to have a message or theme. It can just be for shits and giggles, I love those books too! However, ass I was reading this book, I was expecting something would come out of all this tragedy, pain, and anger. The idea of this hunger that permeates each of the vampires and having the POV from women, I was expecting something about female hunger or desire. Or to even explore queer anger and hunger throughout these years of having much of that suppressed. But no, we get something different.

Before Lottie, Sabine was an angry woman. Rightly so. She has no protections, no agency, no independence, no bodily autonomy (until she becomes a vampire, of course). This is the case for all women at this time, but then we add on Sabine’s romantic feelings towards women that are not allowed to be fully expressed. They have to be hidden or shoved down, creating more anger. There’s times in the book where Lottie (and others) will discuss how angry and rabid Sabine has become as if she hasn’t always been this way. So strange. Yet, none of this is discussed between the characters or remarked on by anyone. Then in this time period with Lottie and Sabine’s relationship we have a jealous, controlling, abusive Sabine. Once Lottie leaves Sabine, I can’t help but think of Sabine chasing after Lottie as the overpowering heteronormative culture saying “because you are queer you can never settle down or have a relationship or be happy. You must be alone and miserable to save everyone!” There’s actually a line where Ezra almost exactly this sentiment to Lottie “Either these girls’ lives matter more than your need for love, or they don’t” (pg. 479). I don’t know what I’m supposed to think coming away from this book except the idea that queer people don’t deserve to be happy and be in love, which doesn’t make sense knowing Schwab.

The fact that Sabine is killed by Alice in a really stupid, nonsense way that makes no sense for Sabine’s characterization from the 500 plus pages before was the main reason I wanted to throw the book. Not only do we have that death but then Lottie shows up and now, the audience is supposed to believe that Lottie is also evil and needs to die. This felt even more egregious than Sabine’s death because it felt like a twist for the sake of it. I’m all for unreliable narrators and twist endings, but the point of them is to have the reader come to the realization that they were fooled all along. That when they go back through the text they’ll see the crumbs of deceit from a character or the author. It’s not supposed to be a gotcha moment, it’s supposed to be an “aha” moment of the reader realizing that the evidence was there all along. To set up Lottie’s character this way is a disservice. I’m supposed to believe that the woman who let a man go as she was feeding him because he said “please” is now bad. The woman who truly cared about each person she interacted with and her vampire friends, so much so she did everything she could to protect them, is bad. I refuse to buy into this premise! Not to mention, it’s coming across a bit like victim blaming. Yes, Sabine is evil, but you who literally could be controlled by this woman and made a binding promise to never hurt her are just as evil because you let all these bad things happen to others even though you were abused and couldn’t get out (until said abuser was dead).

These were the major aspects that disappointed me once I finished the book. There’s other minor things that come up that annoyed me or left me with questions. The “bury our bones in the midnight soil” poem was repeated ad nauseum, and while a pretty lyrical poem to explain vampires, after the third time, I was done with it. How did Sabine get into Alice’s dorm room? Is it because it’s a dorm room, so not hers? All we know is that Alice wakes up with Sabine on top of her but nothing is explained about how Sabine got in. Was it a roommate? We’ll never know. Alice, in general, was a boring character. I didn’t care for her at all. I wouldn’t even call her a main character but a secondary one. Everything that happens in the book, happens to her, so she’s not an active participant in her own life. Yes, she killed both Sabine and Lottie, but that was purely for plot. Sabine would’ve seen it coming (she had on chain mail!!), and Alice was doing nothing but thinking of trying not to think of killing her…Alice would think “oh gosh, how am I going to-oh right I’m not supposed to think this. Let’s go back to thinking of Lottie.”

While this may seem contrarian, I do want to add in that there were some elements I did like. Again, the whole concept of hunger especially from a female perspective was fascinating. The idea that vampires aren’t actually immortal was a different vampiric lore that I liked. It’s explained that they decay just like humans but at a slower rate. Instead of showing the rot on the outside, it goes inward where there empathy, humanity, kindness, etc. are slowly chipped away until all that’s left is the hunger. They’re essentially a rabid animal that needs to be put down. And, Schwab is an amazing, lyrical writer. There’s many quotes, conversations from the book that I enjoyed like the conversation between Lottie and her mother before Lottie leaves for London. Or Sabine’s inner thoughts about her being this vessel for a baby and why does our bodies determine what our life should look like is something I’ve thought for years. If there was just more follow through this book could’ve been amazing!

But I’m curious of what others think! Drop me a comment below. Did you enjoy this book or not?

Darcy