TJ Klune has a way of capturing the essence of what it means to be human—even when telling stories that are delightfully weird, heartfelt, and packed with sci-fi twists. The Bones Beneath My Skin is no exception. With its Stranger Things-esque energy, cult conspiracies, and a deeply emotional core, this book takes readers on an unexpected journey of connection, identity, and survival. The story follows Nate, a man who has lost his way, and Artemis Darth Vader (yes, really), a precocious young girl with a secret that could change everything. When they cross paths with Alex, a man running from his past, the three form an unlikely bond as they navigate government conspiracies and the weight of their own personal histories. Klune’s signature humor and warmth shine through, making the book as tender as it is thrilling.

Was this a perfect read for me? Nearly—though it had moments of inconsistency, and some aspects of the plot felt a bit scattered. But did I enjoy it? Absolutely--you have no idea! Art is an unforgettable character, and the relationships in this book, especially the found-family dynamic, are Klune at his best. Plus, the book asks some big questions about what it means to be human, which gives it a layer of depth beyond the sci-fi action. Is this book for everyone? Probably not. But if you’re a fan of found-family stories, love a good conspiracy theory, or just want a sci-fi novel that leans into humor and heart, this one is worth checking out. And if you ever find yourself in need of an Artemis Darth Vader to tell you when you’ve met the love of your life (and remind you to eat more bacon), even better.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 (Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!)

The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune is a story about found family and choosing the life you want. It’s part romance, part fantasy, part road-trip.

The Bones Beneath My Skin book cover.
Poor Nate feels like he has nothing left in his life, after losing his parents, and then his job. He heads to the family’s cabin, where he meets Alex and Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis (a 10-year old girl) and Alex are on the run.

Will Nate join them? You’ll have to read it to find out!

This book is a fantasy, so if you are put off by the paranormal, cults, or evil government forces, it might not be for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 out of 5)

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for an advance copy in exchange for sharing my opinions. All opinions in this review are my own.

TJ Klune did not disappoint. This author is an automatic buy for me.

I really loved the dynamic between Nate, Alex, and Artemis.

Ok I can’t see why people like this book and while it wasn’t for me it was well written! I don’t think sci-fi is my jam. Fantasy yes but not true sci-if with aliens. Now is a book where the main character, Art, is speaking like an Old Western actor. Toto’s turn off.

However I liked the characters but wish we would have gotten to know them more. Especially Art as the being from another planet. We also needed more between Nate and Alex for me to believe they wanted to be together. I’ve the action started and they were on the run the book took off in a great direction. When they were gaming around the cabin it was getting stale.

I liked this book but appreciate his newer Cerulean Sea books more.

Goodreads Review:
Oh how I love T.J. Klune. I read this as an ARC from NetGalley. Thanks to them and to Tor!

I’m not sure I’ve ever not cried a good cry while reading a Klune book. To read Klune is to remember what it’s like to love and to feel and to be part of a family. And to know that life takes you on adventures that help you find your people. ❤️

Read if you like:
🛸 Science Fiction
🏳️‍🌈 LGBTQ2sIA+ Romance
🥰 Found Family
🥓 Bacon

1️⃣ Third Person POV
📍 Oregon

I would like to thank @NetGalley, @torbooks , and the author for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

“You think yourself alone. You think yourself lost. We wanted to show you that there was so much more than this place. We didn’t come to hurt you. We didn’t come to save you. Only you can do that. We came to be your friend. To make you understand that, in the end, you are never alone.”

Nate has lost everything. His parents are dead in a traumatic circumstance, his brother doesn’t want anything to do with him, and has lost his job as a journalist in DC. The only things he has left are his dad’s old truck and the family cabin in Oregon. He decides to head to the cabin to spend some time alone to figure out his next direction. But when he gets to the cabin, it’s not empty likely should be. He finds a man, Alex, with a special little girl, Artemis Darth Vader. Nate has to decide if he’s going to stay alone with his sadness, or take a risk and maybe discover more than he ever thought possible.

I have fallen in love with Artemis Darth Vader (Art). She is a brilliant character and I wish she was real. This book hit pretty much every emotion, I laughed, got angry, and had to fight back tears. TJ Klune is a master of found family and this little family is great. The romantic tension wasn’t quite right for me but I loved how everything ended up. I had no idea what to expect with this book and it was a little bit crazy but in a good way.

TJ Klune knows how to captive me from start to finish. I really enjoyed that this book was a little bit of sci-fi with some high intensity thriller elements (made me think of Stranger Things).

I had no idea what the main character Nate would choose to do when he had to make a split second decision, but I love the choices he made and the family he found in this story. I highly recommend picking this one up if you love action packed stories with emotional depth.

Ⓑⓞⓞⓚ Ⓡⓔⓥⓘⓔⓦ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤 𝔹𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕪 𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕟
𝗧𝗝 𝗞𝗹𝘂𝗻𝗲

TJ Klune’s imagination and the imagery his writing brings to life stand firm in The Bones Beneath My Skin.

My favorite character is Artemis Darth Vader, the young girl the story centers around. She is unique and honest to a fault.

The story delves into relationships, trust, the unknown, a government secret, and even a cult-type situation.

Full of mystery and love with wording that flows from the page like butter, I couldn’t put this one down.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with this ebook to read and review.

Another Klune book that I absolutely adored. I loved the characters, the action, the love and the laughter. Artemis Darth Vader is a young girl I would be delighted to sit with and have a conversation. I have kids with Asperger’s that are like her and they are my most favorite conversations.
I also love the developing hate/love relationship between Alex and Nate. Add a little space princess to the mix, and you have the perfect trio for a remarkable story.
Artemis is from a place far far away and she gets left behind on earth. She inhabits the body of a young man for twenty years and then she is extracted from his body to be put in a young girls body who has died. Alex is her guardian, of sorts, and spends 20 years by her side, before planning a daring escape from “The Mountain”, and underground secret research facility.
The people who work there call Artemis “it” but she is so much more. More human than any of us. She’s quirky, smart, funny and loves bacon more than anything in the world.
Once they have escaped, they find an out of the way cabin, which was left to Nate, a young man that has lost everything due to bad choices. Trying to get his life back together, he heads to the cabin only to find this odd couple, a gruff brute of a man and a girl that he can’t seem to figure out.
Their relationship grows and blossoms into something so beautiful. The love they share is deeper than any love can be between the three of them.
For Klune fans, it’s a just read and it won’t be forgettable. It will top my list of books I recommend to my friends.

I didn't love this book as much as the other TJ Klune books I've read, but I still liked it a lot. It just gave me this low level of anxiety the whole time I was reading it, which I think is the author's intent, so good on him for successfully making me feel anxious that something bad is going to happen to these characters at any moment. The things I enjoyed are Klune's humor. While I wouldn't say the romance was central to the plot, the science fiction thrilled part was, this was definitely a book about love. Family love and romantic love, and as with the best science fiction books, what it means to be human.

In a slight departure from the cozy fantasy readers have come to love and expect from TJ Klune, The Bones Beneath My Skin is a suspenseful, cinematic roadtrip thriller, bordering on the edge of science fiction. As always, the storytelling is beautiful and I loved the intentional, humorous, and emotional way Klune crafted the budding connection and strong bond between Nate, Alex, and Art. I'm not normally a sci-fi reader, but I was hooked on this story from the very beginning. So glad Klune and Tor re-released it!

Oh TJ Klune - how I love you! I thought this was a NEW book from Klune so was so interested to find out that this is actually a backlist book that he had self-published that has now been published by Tor in 2025. That made a lot more sense to me because this book definitely felt like what I expect from Klune - fantastical elements, unforgettable characters, and a storyline that is incredibly unique and different from anything I have read before. But I did feel that it fell a little short compared to my favs of his - The House in the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

But even in saying that - any Klune book is unforgettable and beautiful in my opinion! This story deals with grief in a way that was really beautiful and compelling and also had those classic Klune moments where I was laughing and tearing up on the same page. In true Klune tradition, this book featured a character that now has a forever place in my heart - something that has become a staple in every single book I had read by him. 10 year old Artemis Darth Vader - yes you read that right - stole my heart completely and will live forever right next to other classic Klune characters like Nurse Ratched & Rambo, Apollo the dog, and basically everyone in Cerulean Sea!

Is this my favorite book by TJ Klune? No.
But ANY book by TJ Klune is better than a TON of other books I have read - he truly can do no wrong in my eyes. His characters and the worlds he creates pierce my heart completely and never let go.

Thank you to Netgalley & Tor Books for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this book. TJ Klune's characters are always incredibly well written and you just have to love them. This book gives all the feels.

Oh my heck, TJ. How do you do it? How do you give us these characters that take up so much of our hearts?

Artemis Darth Vader will live with me forever. She had my heart from the very beginning, hoss. This book was everything you love about Klune's books with a little more grit. If you're looking for Cerulean Sea, you won't exactly find it, but you will see where it came from. If you've done your research, you will see this was a book written while with another publisher and I am oh so glad TJ was feeling petty (read the author's note), because it allowed Tor to share this book with us.

So many points in this book are still relevant today from when it was written. The characters forming like a friend in your mind, you see them clear as day, and care for them as only Klune can make you. He has a way with creating these souls that reach in and become a part of us.

I don't think I've really told you that much about the book. But I don't think I need to. My rambling says what needed to be said. Read the book.

"She told me once, a long time later, that when she made me laugh for the first time, it was the greatest thing she's ever done."

I received an advanced copy of this rerelease. All opinions are my own.

I have never read anything by this author, but I will be looking out for other books they write in the future. I really enjoyed the story as well as the pacing of the story.

First book by T.J. Klune I’ve read after hearing so many good reviews from friends and staff. Nate is left the cabin that his parents owned upon their deaths. Losing his job sends him to the cabin to regroup, but when he gets there he finds Alex and a young girl called Artemis living there. The two are running from the government and Nate gets caught tagging along. I’m not a big sci-fi/fantasy reader so take my rating with a grain of salt.
Goodreads

This is my second TJ Klune book and oh my goodness, they have found themselves in my heart as such wholesome and heart tugging stories! This is different than Klune's more popular books but don't let that stop you from giving it a chance and push yourself through it. I promise it's worth it!

TJ Klune’s The Bones Beneath My Skin is a heartfelt, genre-blending novel that seamlessly weaves sci-fi, found family, and emotional depth. The story follows Nate Cartwright, a man seeking purpose, who stumbles upon an enigmatic girl named Artemis and her fierce protector, Alex. As they evade mysterious forces, Klune crafts a narrative rich with tenderness, humor, and poignant themes of love and belonging. The novel’s vivid characters and immersive storytelling make it a gripping yet deeply emotional read. Fans of Klune’s signature warmth and humanity will find this novel both thrilling and profoundly moving.

I absolutely adore TJ Klune! The Bones Beneath My Skin has the same heart wrenching and heartwarming moments you’ve come to expect in his books, but with a totally new and unique setting and storytelling. Even though it takes place in a more true-to-life world, it certainly has some weird, quirky and supernatural elements. The relationships between the three main characters are beautiful and Art is a character I’ll be thinking about for a long long time.

TJ Klune is a master of quirky queer lit, and The Bones Beneath My Skin is no exception. This is the sort of book you should go into blind. Don't read the flap, just know that Klune is going to take you on an blockbuster style adventure. This book was the literary equivalent of a movir car chase screen. Just hang on and enjoy the ride. Oh, and you might want to have a box of tissues ready because in typical Klune fashion, the ending will get to you. All the stars for TJ Klune's weird little book!