The Lady Who Loved Bones By: Jack Hazen

With any review I always like to start by letting the reader know how it was to read the book, so this book is very long and it is not a light easy read. You most likely will not pick up this novel and automatically get wrapped up and engrossed in the plot or imagery and i feel the main reason for this is the fact that it is a story made up of a lot of other stories, to the point it almost reminds you of a textbook. So the basic premise of the book is a woman named Hannah going on an expedition through the west to find dinosaur bones. It is set in the early 1900s so it deals with the issues of the time, like the trials and wars with the native Americans. Hannah is highly educated, so while on the journey she is constantly telling stories about pretty much everything, which is where the textbook factor comes in. At first these tales she tales are neat since they are very informative, but once you get over halfway done with the novel they are still good and informative, but you wish the writer would just get to the freakin' point and let the story itself progress. The author also features full song lyrics in the novel, which I feel it was his way of adding more meaning and depth to the story, since this would be something in a classic novel that in school you would look at the symbolism and write lengthy research papers on, BUT that does not work here since this is not a classic novel written by a world renowned author, so it just adds more length to a story that is already way too long. Also this novel is not for younger audiences for sure since there is lots of sex jokes, racism, and gory torture and when i say gory i mean gory the author goes to great detail of bodily mutilations like scalping and castration. The book also is very repeative, it seem like in the story every night around the camp fire the same conversations happen, you have a preacher who is racist and sexist, so he is constantly telling everyone they are going to Hell and that blacks and women should not be given the right to vote, but then he stays drunk most of the time. Then you have Hex who plays Hannah's somewhat love interest who is constantly making jokes at Hannah about sex, which she tells him she will not do with him unless they are married. Then one member is transgendered, meaning it is a man that dresses, acts, and lives as a woman and the men in the travel party are constantly bringing up and making fun off. So if you were to strip away the "stories" or for me lectures, the repeative crude jokes, the songs, and torture you have a pretty good story that does have enough action to keep the reader interested.