 Renee S. DeCamillis gives us a story pared to the bone. Publisher: Eraserhead Press Publication Date: September 1, 2019 Coming in at a shade under 24,500 words this is a quick read, made significantly quicker by the simplicity of language and rapid pace. The somewhat unfortunate revelatory back cover blurb gives away far too much of what makes the story interesting— and it IS genuinely interesting. Although there is a strong hint in the title it doesn’t give the reason why the bone cutters are indeed bone cutters or whether it applies to people, creatures or even medical instruments. Much is left to the imagination there, and the same can be said for the general contents, but as I said, the back cover blurb says too much. That doesn’t prevent it from being a totally engrossing read. The book itself is written in a first person point of view, which in many books can often prove problematic but not here as both the concept and narrative are fresh and it pays attention to the tenses which are sometimes the downfall of stories written in the first person. The characterisation is quirky with even the most stereotypical of them being handled with just enough description to make them believable but not enough as to bog one down in unnecessary details. There’s nothing overplayed here and I would have liked more about many of the characters, which would have taken a book double the length— a small sacrifice. The main character’s name is kept from us for the most part, but there is no actual revelation forthcoming as to why that is, it’s just the way things are. It’s not actually meant to be a secret as it’s given in the back cover blurb, but it does add to the expectation that something more will happen from it. As the story of a young woman ‘finding herself’ in a situation she should never have been in it all kinda-sorta makes sense. No matter what books we read there are always going to be problems, and The Bone Cutters is no exception as there are a couple of things which go against it somewhat. First of all is that the ending doesn’t do justice to the overall concept. Don’t get me wrong, the ending does work, it does resolve things, but I would have loved to have seen more of the final events in question. It’s not easy to explain things without spoilers, suffice to say that when you read it you’ll no doubt see what I mean. There’s such a clarity of writing here that it’s something more than the sum of its parts and I feel a lot more could have been done with those individual parts. The second thing really trails on from the first in that The Bone Cutters is too damned short. There are many books out there which do a lot with a novella length word count and some of those really won’t have needed 20,000+ words to do it in, yet The Bone Cutters is different as it gives the overall feeling of just scraping the bones of the story. I wanted to know more, read more and be involved more as I feel there was so much unsaid throughout. I’m not sure whether there would have been a full novel-length work here without overdoing it, yet I feel it could certainly have doubled in size without losing any of the quality. It’s actually refreshing to be able to enjoy a book so much that you were miffed when it was over. Generally I read a lot of things which I could readily edit a third of the content from without losing any of the plot, The Bone Cutters isn’t one of those, if anything it’s leaving so many interesting things untold. As the debut novella from Renee S. DeCamillis it’s a fantastic beginning to what could prove to be a career to watch. On our beloved Gingernut-O-Meter I’m giving this a solid 4 out of 5. Yeah, I’m punishing it for the reasons I’ve already given, but considering that I’ve never read anything which rated a 5 I think The Bone Cutters is doing just fine. It’ll be out soon, so go check it out. Joe X Young. Horror Writers Association member Renee S. DeCamillis is a dark fiction writer & an editorial intern at Crystal Lake Publishing. Her debut book, The Bone Cutters, is set for release on September 1, 2019 through Eraserhead Press.  The Bone Cutters by Reneé S. DeCamillis Dory wakes up in the padded room of a psychiatric hospital with no recollection of how she wound up there. She soon finds out she’s been Blued-Papered—involuntarily committed. When she is sent to the wrong counseling group, she discovers a whole new world of drug addicts she’d never known existed. When she learns that those grotesque scars they all have are from cutting into their own bodies, it makes her skin itch. Why do they do it?—They get high off bone dust. They carve down to the bone, then chisel and scrape until they get that free drug. When they realize Dory’s never been “dusted”, she becomes their target. After all, dust from a “Freshie” is the most intense high, and pain free—for the carver. By the end of that first meeting Dory is running scared, afraid of being “dusted”, though the psych. hospital staff doesn’t believe a word she says. She’s delusional—at least that’s what they tell her. They end up sending her to that same counseling group every day, though Dory knows that all those junkie cutters want is what’s inside of her, and they won’t give up until they get what they’re after. Like Girl Interrupted and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, The Bone Cutters is one woman’s dark and surreal experience with a madness that is not necessarily her own.   Comments are closed.
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