Angie
Proceed With Caution:
This book contains blood, gore, death, murder, mind control, suicide, human trafficking, and mentions of child prostitution and rape.
The Basics:
The Other Half of the Grave is Halfway to the Grave from Bones' perspective. It starts with him first laying eyes on Cat while she was out hunting vampires and goes all the way up to their reunion at Denise and Randy's wedding. I would definitely recommend having read at least those two books before jumping into this one.
My Thoughts:
I was so excited to finally get into Bones' head! But The Other Half of the Grave isn't really in his head at all. Yes, it's technically from his perspective, but it's in third person, so I felt a huge disconnect. We don't really get his inner thoughts. It's mainly just the events of the first book, but through his eyes rather than Cat's.
In fact, most of the book is just Bones' observations of Cat. He was totally obsessed from the moment he met her and realized what she was. Unfortunately, the further I read, the more annoyed with him I got. He's always saying how stubborn and frustrating she is, which made me wonder how he was so in love with her?! I much preferred Cat's side of the story, since she had to overcome some major prejudices and self-loathing in order to develop feelings for him.
We do get a bit more about Bones and his relationships outside of Cat and bits of their history, but for the most part this is just a retelling of Halfway to the Grave, since Cat and Bones are together for 90% of it. Even when Bones does go off without her to do something (like tracking down those assclowns from the club), it's completely skipped over and we're just back to Cat and Bones. Such a missed opportunity.
I'm conflicted on my feelings for The Other Half of the Grave. I wanted to love it, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. It's not bad, since it does a good job of telling us the other side of the story. But at the same time, it's too close to the original story and not as interesting. I think it would have been stronger if it had gone into the time Bones was looking for Cat. Probably not the whole five years, but at least the start of it.