The Grave Digger

I listened to the audiobook of this and first off, I'd like to say that I think the youthful tone of the narrator was a great fit for this book.

I'd also like to mention that I'm clearly not the demographic of this book. So this review is based on my thoughts as a parent and remembering what kind of books I liked at this age.

Set in 1875 Ohio (the tail end of the Reconstruction Era), you meet Cap, a 12 year old boy who loves to invent things. Due to financial circumstances for this family, himself and his father end up doing some grave robbing to make some money to pay for his mother's medical bills.

During this time, medical schools would pay for stolen corpses in order to have fresh cadavers for their anatomy and dissection classes.

Cap feels conflicted because of the gruesomeness of stealing a dead body, but also because the justification being used is that “they are unwanted and won't be missed” which for the most part translates to Black.

There was a lot of unaddressed racism in the book, and I felt very disappointed there wasn't more commentary on it from Cap. There were multiple instances of racism and sexism that were mentioned, but we never got any thoughts about Caps feelings on them. Sadly, a missed opportunity.

I think if you are comfortable with the subject matter (grave robbing/dead bodies) then there is a decent mystery and suspense aspect that a 12-14 year old would be entertained by.

***This book was provided to me free via NetGalley for an unbiased review.

Another book where it looked good and then it wasn't. I think I started liking it but it didn't read like a middle grade book. I know it's historical fiction but I feel like there should be a better balance. I did feel a little bit for Cap, but I guess not enough to keep me interested. Funnily enough, it wasn't even the fact of the book being a historical fiction that put me off, just that I didn't connect to the story/characters.