What do you think?
Rate this book
Bone Broth
Justine Holmes is a widow, former activist, and funeral thief, mourning her husband's death during the aftermath of the Ferguson unrest in St. Louis, Missouri. As family tensions deepen between Justine and her three grown children, - a former Bay Area activist at odds with her hometown's customs, a social climbing realtor stifled by the loss of her only child, and a disillusioned politician struggling with his sexual identity-the matriarch is forced to face her grief head-on. By reconciling a past tied to her secret involvement in civil rights activism during the early 1970's in St. Louis, Justine quickly learns the more she attempts to make peace with her history, the more skeletons continue to rise to the surface.
Excerpts from BONE BROTH have been featured in Eleven Eleven, The Offing, Joyland, The Stockholm Review of Literature and Entropy.
Excerpts from BONE BROTH have been featured in Eleven Eleven, The Offing, Joyland, The Stockholm Review of Literature and Entropy.
- GenresFiction
288 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2021
7 people are currently reading
1302 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 22, 2021
Bone Broth was a fantastic read about friends and family, history and secrets, love and pride, grief and mourning, unfolding over months during pivotal protests against police brutality following the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The Holmes family is stunned, on the brink between the past and the present which each member must grapple in their own way, while wading the currents and riptides of contemporary America.
Ellis creates a textured and layered snapshot of an African-American family in 2010s Missouri, their friends, lovers and neighbors, intergenerational conflict both personal and social, all with sharp wit, cinematic dialogue, empathy, and a strong narrative voice that balances the rough and the joy.
Bone Broth could and should be a go-to for many years as a slice of life in America at this time.
Ellis creates a textured and layered snapshot of an African-American family in 2010s Missouri, their friends, lovers and neighbors, intergenerational conflict both personal and social, all with sharp wit, cinematic dialogue, empathy, and a strong narrative voice that balances the rough and the joy.
Bone Broth could and should be a go-to for many years as a slice of life in America at this time.
July 23, 2021
This novel about intergenerational relationships is set against the backdrop of the Ferguson/St. Louis-area protests. Ellis is a terrific writer. This is a great read, and Ellis builds suspense throughout the novel. The more you learn about the characters, the more the suspense builds. There are many threads, many differing viewpoints. Very difficult to write a novel like this, and Ellis nails it. Looking forward to what she writes next.
May 9, 2021
4.5 stars
April 15, 2021
It seems a cliché to compare reading a novel to peeling an onion, but that is exactly what reading this book felt like. From the opening page, I was enchanted by the protagonist, Justine, and her most unusual “collection.” What is UP with this woman? I wanted to know. And, with each chapter, I learned more about her, her past, and how it brought her to who she is when the book opens. As the world around her explodes with the aftermath of Michael Brown’s murder, the world inside her simmers and seethes and, ultimately, brings the reader to a most satisfying conclusion. Lyndsey Ellis is a master of depicting complex family relationships and the hold they have over us. You will love this book!
Merged review:
It seems a cliché to compare reading a novel to peeling an onion, but that is exactly what reading this book felt like. From the opening page, I was enchanted by the protagonist, Justine, and her most unusual “collection.” What is UP with this woman? I wanted to know. And, with each chapter, I learned more about her, her past, and how it brought her to who she is when the book opens. As the world around her explodes with the aftermath of Michael Brown’s murder, the world inside her simmers and seethes and, ultimately, brings the reader to a most satisfying conclusion. Lyndsey Ellis is a master of depicting complex family relationships and the hold they have over us. You will love this book!
Merged review:
It seems a cliché to compare reading a novel to peeling an onion, but that is exactly what reading this book felt like. From the opening page, I was enchanted by the protagonist, Justine, and her most unusual “collection.” What is UP with this woman? I wanted to know. And, with each chapter, I learned more about her, her past, and how it brought her to who she is when the book opens. As the world around her explodes with the aftermath of Michael Brown’s murder, the world inside her simmers and seethes and, ultimately, brings the reader to a most satisfying conclusion. Lyndsey Ellis is a master of depicting complex family relationships and the hold they have over us. You will love this book!
March 8, 2022
It’s 2015, and the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri are still simmering after the fatal police shooting sparked a national debate about use-of-force law, militarization of police, and the relationship between the police and African Americans. Justine’s adult children, an unemployed former activist who is angry at her mother, a realtor still mourning the loss of her only child, and a defeated politician who struggles with his sexual identity, are all mourning their own losses. Tension builds as Justine faces her activist past, her marriage to an abusive husband, and her unquenched longing for family peace, but the only thing that makes her feel alive is stealing small items from other people’s funerals.
Here's my New Books Network interview with author Lyndsey Ellis: https://newbooksnetwork.com/bone-broth
Here's my New Books Network interview with author Lyndsey Ellis: https://newbooksnetwork.com/bone-broth
October 3, 2023
This book was quite challenging for me but it was a joy to read a book set in St. Louis, highlighting areas I know, streets I can drive on, and people like the ones I might run into on my own errands. It introduced me to events in St. Louis history that I will further research because those events are still impacting people and families in the area. It also gave me a glimpse into lives of people I don’t interact with on a regular basis and how the city’s history influenced and continues to influence that lack of intersectionality.
February 11, 2024
Really good book. The story is told by 4 different voices—a Black mother and each of her three very different children—and the events span from the early 70s when the Pruitt-Igoe project was demolished to the present post-Michael Brown era. Set in St. Louis, the City itself is a living character. It’s a good story very well told, with more revelations than I had foreseen. I’m so happy our book group chose this to read in honor of Black History Month. I did indeed learn history that I had been ignorant of. I enjoyed the voices and the writing style and I highly recommend this book.
November 9, 2021
With a vivid sense of character and some truly stellar dialogue, Lyndsey Ellis' novel Bone Broth is as solid and promising a debut one could wish for. Involving, rich and quite funny, it reads and feels like a document of an existing family instead of a great novel invented by a confident, observant writer.
October 23, 2021
i really wanted to like this more than i did but somehow it just didn't gel entirely, though decently written.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews