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Bones of a Giant: A Novel
From the award-winning, bestselling author of All the Quiet Places, comes Brian Thomas Isaac's highly anticipated, haunting and tender return to the Okanagan Indian Reserve and a teenager's struggle to become a man in a world of racism and hardship.
Summer, 1968. For the first time since his big brother, Eddie, disappeared two years earlier—either a runaway or dead by his own hand—sixteen-year-old Lewis Toma has shaken off some of his grief. His mother, Grace, and her friend Isabel have gone south to the United States to pack fruit to earn the cash Grace needs to put a bathroom and running water into the three-room shack they share on the reserve, leaving Lewis to spend the summer with his cousins, his Uncle Ned and his Aunt Jean in the new house they’ve built on their farm along the Salmon River. Their warm family life is almost enough to counter the pressures he feels as a boy trying to become a man in a place where responsible adult men like his uncle are largely absent, broken by residential school and racism. Everywhere he looks, women are left to carry the load, sometimes with kindness, but often with the bitterness, anger and ferocity of his own mother, who kicked Lewis’s lowlife father, Jimmy, to the curb long ago.
Lewis has vowed never to be like his father—but an encounter with a predatory older woman tests him and he suffers the consequences. Worse, his dad is back in town and scheming on how to use the Indian Act to steal the land Lewis and his mom have been living on. And then, at summer's end, more shocking revelations shake the family, unleashing a deadly force of anger and frustration.
With so many traps laid around him, how will Lewis find a path to a different future?
Summer, 1968. For the first time since his big brother, Eddie, disappeared two years earlier—either a runaway or dead by his own hand—sixteen-year-old Lewis Toma has shaken off some of his grief. His mother, Grace, and her friend Isabel have gone south to the United States to pack fruit to earn the cash Grace needs to put a bathroom and running water into the three-room shack they share on the reserve, leaving Lewis to spend the summer with his cousins, his Uncle Ned and his Aunt Jean in the new house they’ve built on their farm along the Salmon River. Their warm family life is almost enough to counter the pressures he feels as a boy trying to become a man in a place where responsible adult men like his uncle are largely absent, broken by residential school and racism. Everywhere he looks, women are left to carry the load, sometimes with kindness, but often with the bitterness, anger and ferocity of his own mother, who kicked Lewis’s lowlife father, Jimmy, to the curb long ago.
Lewis has vowed never to be like his father—but an encounter with a predatory older woman tests him and he suffers the consequences. Worse, his dad is back in town and scheming on how to use the Indian Act to steal the land Lewis and his mom have been living on. And then, at summer's end, more shocking revelations shake the family, unleashing a deadly force of anger and frustration.
With so many traps laid around him, how will Lewis find a path to a different future?
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Published May 27, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 5, 2025
I wanted to love this book, and unfortunately, I did not. I liked it enough to read in spurts.
There was a beautiful and detailed portrait of life on the reserve, and I was quite fond of Lewis. He portrays an accurate party in a predatory encounter, and my heart ached for him.
It is written from the POV of a teenage boy, and sometimes it focuses on his mother and her friend.
There were a lot of fart jokes, oggling of women, and peeing outside. These are things I simply don't enjoy in any book.
I actually found it to be borderline ...sexist. You can tell a man wrote this.
Overall, it was a coming of age story about living on an Indian Reserve, and it taught me a few things and I appreciate this book in that aspect.
There was a beautiful and detailed portrait of life on the reserve, and I was quite fond of Lewis. He portrays an accurate party in a predatory encounter, and my heart ached for him.
It is written from the POV of a teenage boy, and sometimes it focuses on his mother and her friend.
There were a lot of fart jokes, oggling of women, and peeing outside. These are things I simply don't enjoy in any book.
I actually found it to be borderline ...sexist. You can tell a man wrote this.
Overall, it was a coming of age story about living on an Indian Reserve, and it taught me a few things and I appreciate this book in that aspect.
June 4, 2025
3.5 rounded up
A beautifully written coming age literary fiction novel about Lewis, a young Indigenous boy growing up on the Rez, navigating family, first love, colonialism and his own complicated identity. I enjoyed this one but found parts a bit slower than others and have mixed feelings about Lewis's first sexual experience (hint it was not consensual and the female was the aggressor). Recommended for fans of authors like Billy-Ray Belcourt. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
A beautifully written coming age literary fiction novel about Lewis, a young Indigenous boy growing up on the Rez, navigating family, first love, colonialism and his own complicated identity. I enjoyed this one but found parts a bit slower than others and have mixed feelings about Lewis's first sexual experience (hint it was not consensual and the female was the aggressor). Recommended for fans of authors like Billy-Ray Belcourt. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
December 3, 2025
(3.5⭐️, rounded up)
Well written... I just didn't think a whole lot happened throughout the book.
Well written... I just didn't think a whole lot happened throughout the book.
May 13, 2025
What a great follow up to the Quiet places. I really loved it.
August 30, 2025
Words cannot express how much I loved this story. I absolutely sunk into it and held on to every word.
Sometimes the best stories are just that…stories. There’s no flashiness, no white knuckle plots, no mystery, and zigs and zags. There’s just a great story. A tale told from the heart, and from experience, and something to just be shared. That’s exactly what this book was.
Brilliantly executed and tenderly told, Bones Of A Giant really stuck to me and wove its way into my heart. I don’t know that I could pinpoint exactly why. I just know how it made me feel content to read it, happy to get back to it, and sad when it ended.
Sometimes the best stories are just that…stories. There’s no flashiness, no white knuckle plots, no mystery, and zigs and zags. There’s just a great story. A tale told from the heart, and from experience, and something to just be shared. That’s exactly what this book was.
Brilliantly executed and tenderly told, Bones Of A Giant really stuck to me and wove its way into my heart. I don’t know that I could pinpoint exactly why. I just know how it made me feel content to read it, happy to get back to it, and sad when it ended.
July 2, 2025
Isaac's writing of setting - the trees, the river, the clouds - gave me the feeling of almost reading the writing of Richard Wagamese. "Alphonse pointed to where a huge cottonwood had broken off six feet above the ground. The rest lay on the forest floor, it's large, broken branches, reaching out. Bark hung down like ragged clothes on bleached arms. Eddie told Louis the tree looked like the bones of a giant."
The Bones of a Giant is set 2 yrs after All the Quiet Places. It's Lewis's story and it's lighter and less tragic than Eddie's story. Unanswered questions from ATQP are revealed.
The Bones of a Giant is set 2 yrs after All the Quiet Places. It's Lewis's story and it's lighter and less tragic than Eddie's story. Unanswered questions from ATQP are revealed.
October 12, 2025
This was a really great read. I enjoyed it so pic. A real coming of age story set in an indigenous community in BC in the 70s .
Hopefully there’s a sequel coming because it sure seems like there is one…….
Hopefully there’s a sequel coming because it sure seems like there is one…….
August 17, 2025
I wish there was a little more character development and plot to keep me engaged. There were moments I felt like it was picking up and things were starting to happen, but it fell a little short for me. I'm glad I read it, but it wont be my first recommendation it to a friend.
July 29, 2025
A follow-up to All the Quiet Places, this is also a truly wonderful book. Tender, thoughtful, touching. While there is never any doubt about the struggles the Toma family faces, there is a sweetness to the story that envelopes you as you read it. I loved every page.
August 20, 2025
When Canadian author Brian Thomas Isaac released his first novel All the Quiet Places a few years ago, it was met with critical acclaim and healthy sales. His latest release Bones of a Giant is the sequel to that debut work. It was released a few months ago so I’m not sure if it has sold as well as the first, but I do hope people who enjoyed that debut will check this one out too, as it seamlessly picks up where the last left off, with the Toma family and their struggles as its continued focus.
Plot Summary
Lewis Toma is excited for his summer vacation to begin; he has two glorious months away from school with the ability to immerse himself in what he loves most – the nature around him. It’s 1968 and he’s sixteen years old, living with his mother Grace and his aunt Isabel on a reserve in the interior of British Columbia, amongst cold lakes and tall mountains. The house they live in sets him apart from his peers in many ways; he has grown up without indoor plumbing and refuses to let his friends see his home, insisting they drop him off on the road after school, and never inviting them over. The local Indian Agent tells Grace that she is required to pay more money than originally asked for to complete the renovations to install indoor plumbing, so her and Isabel leave for the summer to make money picking fruit to pay off the additional costs. Lewis is left with his cousins who live close by in a brand new house, savoring the luxuries that most kids of his generation have taken for granted. He enjoys his time with a new girlfriend Loretta, but after a disturbing encounter with an older woman, Lewis finds himself struggling to make sense of this new stage in his life, and the strange ways this has connected him to his estranged father, Jimmy. Meanwhile, Grace learns of Jimmy’s plans to use the land that Grace and Isabel currently live on, and although she is fearful of him due to past abuses, she refuses to back down to his intimidations. Back in that time (and sadly, this has only recently changed) the Indian Act historically favoured males, operating within a highly patriarchal and unfair infrastructure that often disadvantaged women.
My Thoughts
I noticed in my review of Isaac’s earlier book I used the term ‘meanders’, and this definitely applies to his sophomore effort as well. Although the book can generally be classified as a coming of age novel, it did feel aimless at times, just like its protagonist Lewis. About three quarters of the way through, the plot is pushed forward by a major change in the Toma family, which helped the plot pick up speed and move it swiftly towards an ending. I also felt confused when minor characters were given pages and pages of backstory, which I thought signaled their return or continuation in the story, but then their storylines simply dropped off right after their in-depth introduction. The pacing of this book could have used some more work.
Despite that complaint there was much to admire about Isaac’s writing too. His depictions of Lewis’s life were a mixture of the joy he found in nature, and the embarrassment he felt at his family’s poverty. Most of the story was written from Lewis’s point of view, but there were a few short chapters written through Grace’s eyes, which helped illuminate both characters’ struggles in a very balanced way, drawing the reader in. Family is a major theme in this book; the extended family plays a critical role in each family member’s survival, and although Lewis’s situation would seem dire at times, the male role models he had helped guide him back to a positive path, even when they had contradictory advice to offer him.
My favourite parts of the book were the moments between Grace and Isabel, and I’m hopeful that if Isaac does write a third book about this family it will center more on these female characters as they both have an inspiring grit and emotional depth not yet developed in the younger male characters:
“‘Aw, Grace, we’re all in the same boat. That’s what living on the reserve does. All you want is a home where your kids are safe and you got enough food to eat and the police watch out for you when some mean guy with a grudge comes along and takes it out on you. But that’s just a dream for us. Hell, when I was thirteen, my mom nailed my window shut to keep the men from getting at me. Can you imagine that?'” (p. 158 of Bones of Giant by Brian Thomas Issac, ARC edition).
It’s a simple life they yearn for, and a simple life they lead, but it’s also this simplicity that appeals to me. These books aren’t for everyone, but Canadians who are familiar with this part of BC and want to learn more about the struggles that Indigenous families faced at that time will appreciate the continued saga of the Toma family.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
Plot Summary
Lewis Toma is excited for his summer vacation to begin; he has two glorious months away from school with the ability to immerse himself in what he loves most – the nature around him. It’s 1968 and he’s sixteen years old, living with his mother Grace and his aunt Isabel on a reserve in the interior of British Columbia, amongst cold lakes and tall mountains. The house they live in sets him apart from his peers in many ways; he has grown up without indoor plumbing and refuses to let his friends see his home, insisting they drop him off on the road after school, and never inviting them over. The local Indian Agent tells Grace that she is required to pay more money than originally asked for to complete the renovations to install indoor plumbing, so her and Isabel leave for the summer to make money picking fruit to pay off the additional costs. Lewis is left with his cousins who live close by in a brand new house, savoring the luxuries that most kids of his generation have taken for granted. He enjoys his time with a new girlfriend Loretta, but after a disturbing encounter with an older woman, Lewis finds himself struggling to make sense of this new stage in his life, and the strange ways this has connected him to his estranged father, Jimmy. Meanwhile, Grace learns of Jimmy’s plans to use the land that Grace and Isabel currently live on, and although she is fearful of him due to past abuses, she refuses to back down to his intimidations. Back in that time (and sadly, this has only recently changed) the Indian Act historically favoured males, operating within a highly patriarchal and unfair infrastructure that often disadvantaged women.
My Thoughts
I noticed in my review of Isaac’s earlier book I used the term ‘meanders’, and this definitely applies to his sophomore effort as well. Although the book can generally be classified as a coming of age novel, it did feel aimless at times, just like its protagonist Lewis. About three quarters of the way through, the plot is pushed forward by a major change in the Toma family, which helped the plot pick up speed and move it swiftly towards an ending. I also felt confused when minor characters were given pages and pages of backstory, which I thought signaled their return or continuation in the story, but then their storylines simply dropped off right after their in-depth introduction. The pacing of this book could have used some more work.
Despite that complaint there was much to admire about Isaac’s writing too. His depictions of Lewis’s life were a mixture of the joy he found in nature, and the embarrassment he felt at his family’s poverty. Most of the story was written from Lewis’s point of view, but there were a few short chapters written through Grace’s eyes, which helped illuminate both characters’ struggles in a very balanced way, drawing the reader in. Family is a major theme in this book; the extended family plays a critical role in each family member’s survival, and although Lewis’s situation would seem dire at times, the male role models he had helped guide him back to a positive path, even when they had contradictory advice to offer him.
My favourite parts of the book were the moments between Grace and Isabel, and I’m hopeful that if Isaac does write a third book about this family it will center more on these female characters as they both have an inspiring grit and emotional depth not yet developed in the younger male characters:
“‘Aw, Grace, we’re all in the same boat. That’s what living on the reserve does. All you want is a home where your kids are safe and you got enough food to eat and the police watch out for you when some mean guy with a grudge comes along and takes it out on you. But that’s just a dream for us. Hell, when I was thirteen, my mom nailed my window shut to keep the men from getting at me. Can you imagine that?'” (p. 158 of Bones of Giant by Brian Thomas Issac, ARC edition).
It’s a simple life they yearn for, and a simple life they lead, but it’s also this simplicity that appeals to me. These books aren’t for everyone, but Canadians who are familiar with this part of BC and want to learn more about the struggles that Indigenous families faced at that time will appreciate the continued saga of the Toma family.
To read the rest of my reviews, please visit my blog:
https://ivereadthis.com/
July 17, 2025
I liked following the life of indigenous families from my province of BC. Many landmarks that I know & wildlife.
August 13, 2025
This is a sequel to "All the quiet places" in which we discover that Eddie didn't commit suicide, as suggested in the previous book. He found his way to Alberta to work in the oil fields, earning good money, & after 2 years decided to come back to visit Salmon River & the old homestead, though not reconciled with his mother Grace Toma, but happy with his brother Lewis, & still missing his former dead girlfriend & chasing girls & a good time, unlike his more sober younger brother. Grace & her friend Isabel work in the US as agricultural workers & are able to improve the shabby reserve home with electricity, running water & modern appliances & added space. Eddie who has fallen in love with Loretta, is seduced when drunk by a beautiful older woman who happens to be his father Jimmy's girlfriend. This ruins his love affair, which later he will be able to restore. Jimmy had returned to the reserve & schemed to take over Grace's land & to profit from the scavenging of stolen cars, but is scared off & then killed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 22, 2025
Isaac's ability to convey a sense of place is so strong, I can feel the heat, feel the dust and hear the animals as he describes them. The narrative did not hold me in the same way his first book did. The story flowed well, and I can't really put my finger on why it didn't work as well for me, his first book I gave a 5 star rating and consider it one of my top five novels ever. But I know there is a third book coming in this series, and I'll be happy to read it. I attended a reading by Isaac, and admired his humility and dedication to his craft.
September 20, 2025
I enjoyed All The Quiet Places (the first novel to this series) a bit more than this one, however still appreciated Brian Thomas Isaac’s storytelling.
He tackles heavy themes with a balanced approach that helps the reader’s ability to swallow this type of content.
The conclusion seems to end abruptly and had me feeling like this family’s story isn’t finished. I’d love to read from Grace’s perspective for a full book if the author chooses to write a third novel.
He tackles heavy themes with a balanced approach that helps the reader’s ability to swallow this type of content.
The conclusion seems to end abruptly and had me feeling like this family’s story isn’t finished. I’d love to read from Grace’s perspective for a full book if the author chooses to write a third novel.
August 4, 2025
3.5*
Set on a reserve in the Okanagan Valley in 1968, this novel is about the coming of age of Lewis, a young Indigenous boy. He lives with his mother and extended family. Over the course of the summer his missing brother returns home, his mother manages to update her home with indoor plumbing among other things.
Set on a reserve in the Okanagan Valley in 1968, this novel is about the coming of age of Lewis, a young Indigenous boy. He lives with his mother and extended family. Over the course of the summer his missing brother returns home, his mother manages to update her home with indoor plumbing among other things.
December 1, 2025
Saw this recommendation on Instagram, and I started reading this whenever there are short breaks between lectures. Perhaps it was because I read it in short spurts, the story overall wasn't the strongest, and I found it hard to finish this novel in general. I finally finished it today because I wanted to move on to a different novel.
June 7, 2025
3.5-3.75
June 17, 2025
I really loved his debut novel. This didn’t grab me quite the same, but still very good!
June 28, 2025
Some parts were amazing but all the other parts had fart jokes
October 11, 2025
A bit slow … coming of age of an indigenous teen on reserve in BC. Didn’t love the writing. But interesting portrayal of the strong women and their challenges.
October 27, 2025
Simultaneously very charming and warm and nostalgic but also tragic. I've always had a soft spot for bildungsroman-type stories.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews