Reading Response: Outside The Bones

          Outside The Bones by Lyn Di Iorio is a fiction novel based on the mysterious realms of dark magic from the Palo Monte belief. It is an Afro-Caribbean magical art based on Congo ancestry which is similarly to voodoo. The book takes place mainly in New York City with some flashback scenes that take place in Puerto Rico. The story is revealed through the narrator, Fina Mata, the protagonist of the story. Since it is being told from the first-person narrative, the readers can relate easier to the events of the story. One of the literary techniques that caught my eye is the use of the various forms of imagery. Throughout the book, the author uses phrases to create images for the reader to visualize. Some of the examples can be illustrated through the description of visual, auditory (sound), and kinesthetic (movement) imagery. The text states: "The tide was low…and when it sucked the sand from under her feet, she felt a melting in her bones as if part of her was floating away... with the hot sun bearing down on her with its fierce bald eye (155).The author uses visual imagery of the setting to establish the mood and to describe Aurora’s feelings which is similarly to the movement of a low tide. Another example of imagery is through the uses of kinesthetic and auditory imagery. The narrator states: “Rapapap. It was coming next to me, but I couldn’t see what was making the sound. Instead of running, my hip swayed, one leg stepped forward and I started to dance…Rapapapapapap” (72). The author uses the word “Rapapapapapap” to portray the sound that the narrator heard which, leads to dance motion. 

           In my opinion, this novel is different from all of the books I have read for school. I never got a reading assignment where the text involved sexual explicit words or graphic descriptions. Similarly like other people, I did not get a good impression of book when I first saw it because of the cover page and title. However, as I was reading page after page, I got entrapped to the story and wanted to learn more about the characters and their situations. Even though I had a difficult time understanding the text since the author wrote in English language mixed with Spanish words, I still find this book fascinating because the author does not use complex English words but language from everyday life that gives description in detail to portray the story.