The Bones Beneath My Skin
TJ Klune
Hardcover / eBook
ISBN: 9781250890436
Tor, February 2025, 416 pgs.

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another book review! This month I’m happy to present to you a book about love, loss, freaky fantasy, found family, and a little girl named Artemis Darth Vader who might be more than she initially appears. That’s right, we’re reading TJ Klune’s The Bones Beneath My Skin, and it is one rollercoaster of a ride.

The Bones Beneath My Skin takes place in 1995 and is mainly told from the viewpoint of Nathaniel (Nate) Carter, a journalist (don’t call him a reporter) who has pretty much hit rock-bottom. His parents are dead, his brother doesn’t want anything to do with him, he just lost his job for ethical violations, and all he has left is his dad’s truck, an isolated cabin in the Oregon woods, and a whole lot of unwanted memories attached to both. Unfortunately for Nate, his plans to do some introspective soul-searching are upended when he arrives at the cabin and finds two people squatting in it—Alex, a burly man with a gun he’s not afraid to use, and Artemis Darth Vader, a ten-year-old girl who’s just a little . . . off. As Nate learns more about his unexpected visitors, he’s drawn into a mysterious web of conspiracies and otherworldly events, but he might have also found something he didn’t know he needed.

There are a lot of other things I want to say about the plot, which I really, really enjoyed, but I also am not in the habit of spoilers, so instead the first thing we’re going to talk about is Klune’s vividly evocative writing. Nate, Alex, and Artemis are brought to stunning life in snappy sentences that don’t overstay their welcome, and Klune takes the time to flesh out little details that make the characters almost leap off the page. The dialogue is clever and quick without feeling forced, and as someone who grew up a teenager in the mid-90s, the environment, both physical, social, and emotional, is spot on (both the good, and the bad). This is an author who knows what he wants to say and how to say it, and it was a delight to read each new interaction between Nate, Alex, and Artemis as they get to know each other.

The second thing I really liked about The Bones Beneath My Skin is that it is an unabashedly queer story, one that pulls no punches about what it was like to be something other than straight during the mid-90s. Klune does an excellent job portraying part of the history of LGBTQ issues (primarily the AIDS crisis and negative views of same-sex relationships) without devolving into caricatures, both of those affected as well as those who judged. Nate isn’t “the gay journalist,” he’s a journalist who also happens to be gay, and Klune does a beautiful job reminding people that sexuality is only one facet of all the things that go into making us human beings.

(Quick heads up to parents, there are a couple explicitly described sex scenes in this book, so if you’re not okay with your kids reading about people touching their naughty bits together, be warned.)

The third thing I enjoyed about this book, is that it’s also an action-packed adventure ride that wouldn’t look out of place as a summer blockbuster. There are car chases, tense shootouts, cult leader showdowns, flying Humvees, crashing helicopters, and more. The people after Artemis and Alex aren’t afraid to pull out all the stops to try and get her back, and Klune brings his same evocative imagery to the action sequences with very satisfying results. There’s plenty of time between set-pieces for the characters (and reader) to breathe, but when the bandits come a-gunning for the cowpokes, things get real serious real quick (Klune also has a delightful recurring Western theme going through the story).

(Again, a heads up to parents, there is plenty of graphic violence in this book, so probably read it yourself first.)

Overall, The Bones Beneath My Skin is at times tender, at times terrifying, and always told with an eye towards the inherent humanity everyone deserves to be shown. I really enjoyed the journey of Nate, Alex, and Artemis Darth Vader, and I think you will too. (I promise that name makes sense after a certain point.)